topic: Rhinos

topic: Rhinos

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A single gang of poachers may have killed 10% of Javan rhinos since 2019
- A poaching case currently being heard in an Indonesian court has revealed that at least seven Javan rhinos were killed from 2019-2023 for their horns.
- The world’s sole remaining population of Javan rhinos lives in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park, with official population estimates standing at around 70 individuals.
- A single suspect has been arrested and indicted in the case, with three alleged accomplices still at large.
- The revelation from the recent indictment raises questions about security at the park, most of which has been closed off to the public since September 2023 over poaching concerns.

New calf, same threats: Javan rhinos continue to reproduce despite perils
- Recent camera-trap images of a Javan rhino calf, estimated to be 3-5 months old in March, demonstrate that the species continues to reproduce despite being beset by challenges.
- The species is confined to a single habitat, and while its population is officially estimated at more than 70 individuals, a report last year cast doubt on those figures, alleging that 18 of those rhinos had not been spotted on camera for years.
- The peninsula of Ujung Kulon National Park, where all Javan rhinos live, has been closed to all visitors since September 2023 after poaching activity was detected.

Nepal mulls policy shift to allow hotels back into tiger strongholds
- Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment is working new regulations to permit hotels to operate within national parks like Chitwan, a draft of the document seen by Mongabay suggests.
- The decision follows the closure of seven hotels in Chitwan National Park in 2009 due to ecological concerns and alleged involvement in poaching, with the last of them shutting down in 2012.
- Despite opposition from conservationists and local communities, the government has shown interest in allowing commercial activities, including large-scale hydropower plants, within national parks, raising concerns about environmental degradation.

Nepali experts question rhino relocation within park for population balance
- Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation relocated five one-horned rhinos from Chitwan National Park’s western region to its eastern side on March 21 to balance the distribution of the animal’s population and reduce competition and fighting for limited resources.
- Factors contributing to low rhino numbers on the east include changes in the Rapti River due to human settlement, which reshaped the riverbed, and the closure of settlements and hotels leading to habitat alterations.
- Conservationists question the efficacy of translocation, suggesting habitat restoration and water management as more sustainable approaches. Government officials promise efforts to manage suitable habitats for rhinos in the eastern sector.

Not just polar bears — climate change could push African rhinos to extinction
- New research finds climate change threatens black and white African rhinos by making their current habitats hotter, drier and less hospitable.
- Rhinos, unable to sweat, rely on shade, water and food sources that are becoming scarcer due to rising temperatures and arid landscapes.
- The study reveals that hotter periods will also likely force rhinos into areas with more humans, raising the risk of conflicts and compounding threats like poaching.
- Experts say strong global climate change mitigation efforts paired with on-the-ground adaptation tactics, such as shade-tree planting, corridor creation and misting stations, would give rhinos a fighting chance.

Black rhinos moved to Kenya’s Loisaba Conservancy as species recovers
- Twenty-one critically endangered black rhinos are settling into their new home at Loisaba Conservancy in northern Kenya.
- The translocations were prompted by the fact that Kenya’s 16 black rhino sanctuaries are running out of space — a remarkable turnaround from rampant poaching in the 1970s and ’80s that reduced the country’s rhino population from 20,000 to fewer than 300.
- The translocated animals, 10 bulls and 11 cows, arrived at Loisaba from Nairobi National Park, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.
- The animals were carefully moved over a period of three weeks and released into a fenced sanctuary covering nearly half the conservancy, marking the first time the species has been present at Loisaba since 1976.

To help beleaguered Javan rhinos, study calls for tree felling, captive breeding
- The sole remaining population of Javan rhinos, around 70 individuals, persists in a single national park in Indonesia.
- A new paper argues that conservationists should clear some areas of the park to increase feeding areas for rhinos, and create a captive-breeding program for the species.
- Recent government reports indicate that 13 of the remaining Javan rhinos display congenital defects, likely due to inbreeding.
- Despite intensive monitoring by camera trap, scientists know relatively little about the species’ reproductive behavior and breeding patterns.

New calf brings new hope, and new concerns, for embattled Sumatran rhinos
- A male Sumatran rhino calf was born Nov. 25 at Indonesia’s Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, marking the second birth at the facility in as many months.
- Independent estimates put the species’ wild population at no more than 47 individuals, so each new birth increases hopes the species can be saved from extinction; the new calf brings the captive population up to 11.
- However, the birth also highlights weaknesses of the captive-breeding program: the father and mother of the new calf are related, a consequence of all the male rhinos currently in captivity being descended from a single genetic line.

Boost for Sumatran rhino IVF plan as eggs extracted from Bornean specimen
- Conservationists in Indonesia say they’ve successfully extracted eggs from a Sumatran rhino to be used in an IVF program meant to boost the population of the near-extinct species.
- The donor rhino, known as Pahu, is a Bornean specimen of the Sumatran rhino, and her egg would greatly expand the genetic pool of a species believed to number as few as 40.
- Since 2012, three Sumatran rhinos have been born under Indonesia’s captive-breeding program, but all are closely related: a single captive male is the father to two of them and grandfather to the third.
- Conservationists say they hope to eventually fertilize Pahu’s eggs with sperm from captive Sumatran males, with one of the Sumatran females then serving as a surrogate to hopefully bring a baby to term.

In biodiverse Nepal, wildlife crime fighters are underpowered but undeterred
- Wildlife crime investigators in Nepal face various challenges, such as lack of training, resources, evidence and database, as well as political and legal pressure.
- They’re responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases related to the hunting and trafficking of iconic species such as tigers, rhinos, snow leopards and pangolins.
- A key obstacle, many say, is a constitutional provision that now requires more serious cases of wildlife crime to be tried before a court; prior to 2015, all such cases would be heard by district forest offices and protected area offices.
- Change is slowly coming, however, with additional training in scientific investigative methods, most recently funded by the U.S. State Department, and with transfer of knowledge.

Indonesia reports a new Javan rhino calf, but population doubts persist
- Indonesian officials have reported the sighting of a new Javan rhino calf in Ujung Kulon National Park, home to the last surviving population of the critically endangered species.
- While the discovery of the female calf is good news, it comes amid growing doubt about official claims that the species’ population is increasing steadily.
- The Indonesian government puts the Javan rhino’s current population at about 80 animals, with an average of three new calves added per year.
- Its past estimates, however, have counted rhinos that have disappeared (some of which were confirmed dead), throwing into question whether the species’ population trend is really increasing or even declining.

Sumatran rhino birth is rare good news for species sliding to extinction
- On Sept. 30, the Indonesian government announced the birth of a female Sumatran rhino at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary.
- The new birth brings the captive population of the species to 10; estimates put the wild population at 34-47 individuals, making Sumatran rhinos one of the world’s most endangered species.
- Each new calf born in captivity signals hope that the species will persist for another generation, but serious problems remain: All of the captive males are closely related, plans to capture more rhinos have stalled, and the existing wild populations are slowly disappearing.

Conservationists urge caution as Nepal to gift more rhinos to China
- Nepal has committed to providing a pair of one-horned rhinos to China, as one gifted in 2018 died due to stomach ailments.
- Conservationists say orphaned rhino calves raised in human contact are best for this purpose.
- Separating rhino calves from their mothers should be the last option, conservationists say.

A rhino-less reserve in Nepal is set to get its first two rhino habitants
- Two wild-born and captive-raised rhinos will be moved from Nepal’s Chitwan National Park to Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve on World Tourism Day, Sept. 27, to boost tourism and biodiversity in eastern Nepal.
- The rhinos, both female, were rescued as calves after being abandoned by their mothers, and raised in a rehabilitation center outside Chitwan, where they’ve since become habituated to humans.
- The translocation is part of a larger effort to create viable populations of greater one-horned rhinos across Nepal, which has seen its rhino population grow from just 100 in 1966 to more than 750 at present.
- Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, has no rhinos, but it also lacks tigers, which means it should be a safer environment for the two young transplants to adapt to.

African Parks to rewild 2,000 rhinos from controversial breeding program
- African Parks, which manages national parks in several countries across the continent, announced it has purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding project
- The conservation organization plans to rewild all 2,000 southern white rhinos in Hume’s project, following a framework to be developed by independent experts.
- The biggest challenge African Parks will face is finding safe spaces to translocate 300 rhinos to every year, as poaching the animals for their horns shows little sign of diminishing.

World’s largest private rhino herd doesn’t have a buyer — or much of a future
- Controversial rhino breeder John Hume recently put his 1,999 southern white rhinos up for auction as he can no longer afford the $9,800 a day running costs — but no buyers have come forward so far.
- Hume’s intensive and high-density approach is undoubtedly effective at breeding rhinos, but with the main issue currently a shortage of safe space for rhino rather than a shortage of rhino, the project’s high running costs and concerns over rewilding captive-bred rhino make its future uncertain.
- Platinum Rhino’s financial issues reflect a broader debate around how to move forward with rhino conservation and the role that private owners have to play when the financial costs of rhino ownership far outweigh the returns.
- Update: The nonprofit conservation organization African Parks has moved to buy the rhinos and reintroduce them to the wild.

Wild or not? Dilemma over two human-friendly rhinos in Nepal
- Two female rhinos, raised in human care and later released in the wild, pose a threat to themselves and people, conservationists warn.
- The rhinos are vulnerable to poaching and human interference, as they are habituated to living with humans.
- Conservationists demand the removal of the rhinos to a safer place, while park officials hope they will adapt to the wilderness.

Amid government inaction, Indonesia’s rhinos head toward extinction (analysis)
- The Sumatran and Javan rhinos, arguably the world’s two most endangered large mammals, are in worse shape than widely reported, according to expert interviews and a recent report.
- The Sumatran rhino is down to fewer than 50 animals in the wild and a much-touted capture program has only caught a single female, which still hasn’t been put into a breeding program.
- Meanwhile, new evidence points to overcounting of the Javan rhino population, putting in doubt the health of its population.
- Experts say the rhinos’ predicament is in part due to a lack of will or a willingness to take risks by the Indonesian government.

Nepal’s rhinos are eating plastic waste, study finds
- A study found plastic waste in the dung of one-horned rhinos in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, which could harm their health and survival.
- The plastic waste comes from the rivers that flood the park during monsoon season, as well as from visitors who litter the park.
- The study suggested that the government and its conservation partners should conduct clean-up programs and implement sustainable waste management plans to protect the rhinos, which are a vulnerable species.

Landmark Nepal court ruling ends impunity for wealthy wildlife collectors
- Wildlife collectors in Nepal will have to declare their collections to the government, under a landmark ruling spurred by the perceived injustice of the country’s strict wildlife protection laws.
- The May 30 Supreme Court ruling caps a legal campaign by conservationist Kumar Paudel to hold to account wealthy Nepalis who openly display wildlife parts and trophies, even as members of local communities are persecuted for suspected poaching.
- Under the ruling, the government must issue a public notice calling on private collectors to declare their wildlife collections, and must then seize those made after 1973, the year the wildlife conservation act came into effect.
- Conservationists and human rights advocates have welcomed the ruling, but say “only time will tell if the government will take this court order seriously or not.”

Low-key return for rescued rhino calves to Nepal’s Chitwan National Park
- Two of three rhino calves rescued from the wild have been returned to Nepal’s Chitwan National Park in what officials say was a “low-key and low-cost” release.
- The two female greater one-horned rhinos had been cared for at a facility on the outskirts of the park after being abandoned by their mothers.
- Officials had debated whether to move them to other parks with smaller rhino populations or to gift them to foreign countries as part of Nepal’s “rhino diplomacy.”
- A third rhino calf, rescued last October following a tiger attack, is also expected to be released back into Chitwan once she’s deemed old enough and ready to take care of herself.

‘I’m not distressed, I’m just pissed off’: Q&A with Sumatran rhino expert John Payne
- Rhino expert John Payne worked with Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia from the 1970s until 2019, when the country’s last rhino died.
- With no rhinos left to care for, Payne has started working with other species, and recently published a book in which he argues the strategy to save Sumatran rhinos from extinction was flawed from the start.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Payne speaks about his new book, moving on after the loss of the rhinos he cared for, and his frustration with officials and conservation organizations.

Flawed count puts ‘glorified’ Javan rhinos on path to extinction, report says
- Javan rhinos, a critically endangered species found only in a single park in Indonesia, may be on a population decline that could see the species go extinct within a decade, a new report warns.
- The report highlights questionable practices in the Indonesian government’s official population count, which has shown a steady increase in rhino numbers since 2011.
- Notably, the official count includes rhinos that haven’t been spotted or recorded on camera traps in years; at least three of these animals are known to have died since 2019.
- The report, by environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara, also highlights an increase in reported poaching activity in Ujung Kulon National Park, and a general lack of official transparency that’s common to conservation programs for other iconic species such as Sumatran rhinos and orangutans.

Human migration to Nepal’s tiger capital adds to conservation challenges
- Chitwan district in central Nepal is home to the eponymous national park that’s come to symbolize the country’s success in growing its tiger population.
- But the district’s human population is also growing, at a rate far higher than the national average, driven by migrants seeking better health services and other urban amenities.
- Conservationists have raised concerns that the growing human presence in the area will pose additional challenges to conservation efforts and put a strain on natural resources such as forests, rivers and land.
- Some warn of an increase in human-tiger conflict, especially involving migrants who don’t share the same traditional knowledge that Indigenous residents have of coexisting alongside the big cats.

For rescued rhino calves in Nepal, return to the wild is a fraught option
- Conservation officials in Nepal are considering what to do with three juvenile rhinos rescued from the wild after being separated from their mothers.
- One option is to return them to the wild in a national park or wildlife reserve with suitable habitat — but with the risk that they could fall prey to tigers. Rhino translocations in Nepal have a poor record — only 38 of 95 rhinos transferred from Chitwan to Bardiya National Park survive, with the rest killed by poachers or farmers.
- That leaves a third option on the table, which is to gift the animals to a foreign country, as part of Nepal’s “rhino diplomacy,” which would leave the young animals facing a lifetime in human company.

Five years since the death of Sudan, new film highlights hope for rhinos
- Though the northern white rhino is functionally extinct – following the loss of Sudan, the last known living male, five years ago this week – conservationists are finding hope in a technique that is creating new embryos using genetic material taken from him and two remaining females.
- To mark the occasion, photographer Ami Vitale has released a new short film called “Remembering Sudan,” which will be screened at upcoming film festivals.
- The film can also be viewed online, and a trailer is visible on the page below.
- “Our fate is linked to the fate of animals,” the filmmaker told Mongabay. “What happens next is in all of our hands.”

Namibian community protects its rhinos from poaching but could lose them to mining
- After years of decline, rhino poaching figures increased in Namibia in 2022, with the biggest losses occurring in Etosha National Park
- No rhinos were killed on communal land, yet one such successful conservancy is seeing its rhinos driven away by blasting and other activity at a copper mine that the environment minister approved in the area.
- The conservancy says the displacement of the resident black rhinos threatens the conservation program and revenue from tourism, and is planning to sue the environment minister.
- The //Huab Conservancy’s dispute highlights weaknesses in the ministry’s exercise of environmental regulation.

Rare case of rhino poaching jolts conservation community in Nepal
- A rare case of rhino poaching in Nepal has sent alarm bells ringing among conservationists, who say the method used could easily be replicated throughout the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park, the rhinos’ stronghold.
- Poachers appeared to have electrocuted a female rhino and her calf using a cable connected to a nearby temple’s power supply.
- Conservation officials say there’s a large number of grid-connected temples and other community buildings throughout Chitwan’s buffer zone that could serve a similar purpose.
- The incident is a rare setback for Nepal, which recorded zero rhino losses to poachers in six of the past 12 years, and only six poaching-related kills out of 165 rhinos that died in the past five years.

New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit
- The 19th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, known as CoP19, ended Nov. 25 in Panama, after two weeks of negotiations.
- Member states agreed on new trade regulations for more than 600 animal and plant species, including the protection of sharks, glass frogs, turtles, songbirds and tropical timber species.
- Experts say that while these new regulations are essential, implementing and enforcing the rules will have the most significant conservation impact.

Stem cells may make ‘impossible possible’ for near-extinct Sumatran rhino
- Wildlife scientists in Germany are developing a method to produce new living cells from a dead Sumatran rhinoceros in an effort to prevent the extinction of the critically endangered species.
- They have used skin samples of the last male rhino in Malaysia, known as Kertam, who died in May 2019, to grow stem cells and mini-brains as reported in the researchers’ recently published paper.
- Fewer than 80 rhinos remain in the world, and they all currently live in Indonesia in the wild, and some in a sanctuary for captive breeding.
- The captive breeding initiative of the Sumatran rhinos began in the 1980s, but over the years, the attempts have yielded both successes and failures.

Poaching surges in the birthplace of white rhino conservation
- Poaching has more than doubled this year in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, the birthplace of white rhino conservation.
- Conservationists say poaching syndicates have turned their attention to this and other parks in KwaZulu-Natal province because rhino numbers in Kruger National Park, the previous epicenter of rhino poaching, have been drastically reduced, and private reserves around Kruger are dehorning their animals.
- Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a very challenging game reserve for anti-poaching patrols to defend, exacerbated by leadership issues in Ezemvelo, the government body responsible for managing KwaZulu-Natal’s conservation areas.
- Unless more is done to tackle the wider issue of the illegal wildlife trade, the future looks bleak for the rhinos of HIP.

New estimate of less than 50 Sumatran rhinos shows perilous population drop
- The official population estimate for Sumatran rhinos has for years been pegged at “fewer than 80,” but a new estimate compiled by rhino experts from the IUCN and TRAFFIC concludes the number is more likely between 34 and 47 rhinos left in the wild.
- Another nine rhinos currently live in captive-breeding centers in Indonesia, where three calves have been born since 2012.
- A survey by the same groups estimated the population at 73 animals in 2015, which indicates a population decline of 13% per year. Experts say the drop likely indicates both dwindling numbers and previous overestimates.

Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
- A sting operation led by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service has netted notorious alleged poacher Simon Ernesto Valoi and an associate in possession of eight rhino horns.
- Conservationists say Valoi and other poaching kingpins have operated freely from Massingir district to poach thousands of rhinos just across the border in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
- Valoi’s arrest, following the January sentencing of another major rhino horn trafficker to 30 years in jail, may be a further sign that Mozambique’s law enforcement authorities are successfully targeting high-level poachers.

White rhino conservation project attempts paradigm shift by including local community
- A project to reintroduce white rhinos in western Zimbabwe has been launched for the first time on community-owned land.
- Two rhinos have so far been released in a small sanctuary comprising grazing land voluntarily donated by villages located near the southern boundary of Hwange National Park.
- A key pillar of the rhino protection strategy has been to recruit scouts from the local community and compensate them fairly.
- As it grows, it’s hoped the sanctuary will raise tourism dollars for community development, and also create a buffer zone to protect farmers’ crops and livestock from Hwange’s elephants, lions and hyenas.

Smart Parks, the Dutch technologists tackling poaching with technology
- Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based organization deploying high tech and an R&D-focused approach to finding technological solutions to conservation problems.
- The organization is best-known for using LoRa (long range) wireless technology to create networks of connected sensors and devices within conservation areas.
- These are designed to help anti-poaching teams through access to real-time data such as animal locations, vehicle movements, and fence voltages, among other parameters.
- Working primarily in Africa, Smart Parks’ next phase of development is to add more sensors to tracking collars to collect additional data such as animal sounds and movement data, and then use machine learning to gain additional insights for research.

Indonesia teams up with Germany on Sumatran rhino breeding efforts
- Indonesia and Germany will team up on advancing the science and technology for captive-breeding of critically endangered species in Indonesia, starting with the Sumatran rhino, to save them from extinction.
- The agreement, signed in May between Indonesia’s Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), will see a newcenter for assisted reproductive technologies and a bio bank established at IPB.
- The initiative between the two research institutes also welcomes government officials, scientists, NGOs and private sector experts from around the world to get involved.
- Indonesia is the last refuge for the Sumatran rhino, whose total population may be as little as 30 individuals.

Bull run: South Africa marks latest rhino relocation to boost populations
- Four black rhinos were translocated to the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province in April, part of wider efforts to repopulate the species’ former range and boost their gene pool.
- Black rhino populations fell from nearly 40,000 in the 1970s to just 2,400 in the early ’90s, due to poaching driven by strong demand for rhino horn in Asia and civil strife in and the flow of weapons across Southern Africa.
- More effective protection and measures to support population growth have helped black rhino populations rise to around 5,600 today.
- Translocation helps reestablish rhino populations in parts of their former range where they’ve been extirpated as well as allowing existing populations to continue to breed.

Study finds high prevalence of gut parasites in Nepal’s rhinos
- A high prevalence of tapeworms and other parasites in the greater one-horned rhinos of Chitwan National Park in Nepal has raised concerns about the threatened species.
- A new study suggests the problem is an unintended consequence of decades of successful rhino conservation, leading to a growing number of the animals roaming outside the park and into areas also frequented by livestock.
- A similar high prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites has also been recorded in India’s Kaziranga National Park.
- The authors of the new study emphasize that the parasites don’t kill the rhinos, although they may affect their metabolism or cause disease during periods of stress.

It’s a girl: Super rare Sumatran rhino born in captive-breeding center
- Indonesia has reported the birth of a Sumatran rhinoceros in a captive-breeding program targeted to save the critically endangered species from extinction.
- The new calf is the first child of captive rhino Rosa at the Way Kambas Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, and Andatu, a male who was himself born at the sanctuary in 2012.
- This new captive birth of a Sumatran rhino has rekindled hopes among experts and officials for more newborns in the future.

Loss of Sumatran rhinos leaves several plant species without a seed disperser
- The critically endangered Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) plays a unique role in dispersing seeds in Southeast Asian forests, and its disappearance from these landscapes is already affecting the composition of the forests.
- Many plant species in this region evolved alongside large animals like rhinos and elephants, developing large, fleshy fruits to entice megafauna to eat and disperse them.
- A new study shows that Sumatran rhinos play this key role for an estimated 79 plant species.
- Despite some overlap in dispersal with Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) and other smaller animals, the study found that several plant species have no other known dispersers than rhinos.

Translocation brings white rhinos to Rwanda, a new land for an old species
- On Nov. 29, 30 white rhinos were introduced to Akagera National Park in Rwanda from a private game reserve in South Africa.
- The relocation is aimed at establishing the species in a new range state and ensuring its survival into the future.
- Akagera National Park has not had a single high-value animal poached for the past 11 years, and has become a sanctuary for other translocated species such as lions and black rhinos, according to the NGO African Parks, which helps to manage Akagera.
- White rhinos are considered a near threatened species that under continual threat from poaching incidents.

Wildlife trade hub Vietnam is also hub of impunity for traffickers, report says
- Only one in every seven wildlife seizures made in Vietnam in the past decade has resulted in convictions, a new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has found.
- Low numbers of arrests and prosecutions highlight problems of weak enforcement and a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
- Three-quarters of the shipments originated from African countries, they found, with numerous large-scale seizures indicating transnational organized crime.
- With pandemic-related restrictions easing, the worry is that the cross-border wildlife trade will come roaring back even as Vietnam struggles to follow up on investigations into past and current seizures.

Work starts on new sanctuary for captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesian conservation authorities have started building a new sanctuary for Sumatran rhinos in the Leuser Ecosystem on the northern tip of Sumatra.
- The facility will be the third in a network of Sumatran Rhino Sanctuaries (SRS), joining the Way Kambas SRS in southern Sumatra and the Kelian SRS in Indonesian Borneo.
- Conservationists plan to capture at least five rhinos from the wild in Leuser and move them to the new SRS as part of a captive-breeding program that’s seen as the best option for staving off the species’ extinction.
- There area currently seven rhinos at the Way Kambas SRS and one at the Kelian facility; in the wild, there are believed to be just 30-80 Sumatran rhinos left, all of them on Indonesia’s Sumatra and Borneo islands.

In Nepal, doubling down on tiger conservation looks to pay off
- Nepal is the only one of 13 tiger range countries that’s on track to meet a 2022 pledge to double its wild tiger population from a 2010 baseline.
- Key to the growing tiger population is the combination of a tough anti-poaching approach and close engagement with communities living near tiger habitats.
- Those measures have had a knock-on effect in also boosting the populations of other iconic species, including rhinos and elephants, but have at the same time fueled human-wildlife conflicts.
- Programs at the community level aim to mitigate these conflicts by fencing off national parks from adjacent villages and compensating villagers for the loss of animals or crops; reducing communities’ reliance on firewood collected from inside parks; and promoting tiger tourism to drive community development.

‘A leap of faith’: Q&A with Robin Radcliffe on airlifting rhinos upside down
- Translocation of animals is not new; what is new is hanging them upside down by their feet under a helicopter, a method pioneered by the African nation of Namibia to transport endangered rhinos.
- A team of researchers recently won an Ig Nobel, a satirical take on the prestigious Nobel prizes that celebrate science at its quirky best, for studying how rhinos fare when transported in this manner.
- Mongabay spoke to Robin Radcliffe, a veterinarian at Cornell University and lead author of a new paper on aerial transportation of rhinos about the importance of doing this work.

One of world’s last two northern white rhinos withdrawn from breeding program
- Scientists have decided to retire one of the world’s last two northern white rhinos from their assisted breeding program, which strives to save the subspecies from extinction.
- BioRescue will no longer harvest eggs from 32-year-old Najin, which makes her daughter, Fatu, the sole supplier of reproductive material for the assisted breeding program; the program has so far created 12 rhino embryos from Fatu’s eggs.
- The decision followed an in-depth ethical risk assessment that considered multiple factors, including Najin’s age, health and welfare.
- Experts say Najin will still play a crucial role in efforts to save her subspecies, such as passing on social and cultural knowledge to future offspring, and providing tissue samples for advanced stem cell research.

Drones are a knife in the gunfight against poaching. But they’re leveling up
- At the peak of the rhino poaching war in South Africa in 2015 and 2016, poachers slaughtered nearly three rhinos a day.
- Although that rate has declined, the numbers are still disheartening and unsustainable, with poachers killing at least one rhino every day.
- Some conservationists have looked to drones as a potentially powerful tool in anti-poaching efforts, with the technology continuing to evolve.
- But experts say it isn’t at the level yet where it can meet the challenge, and that while it can be helpful, conservation efforts must continue to engage and educate local communities.

Malawi court sentences Chinese wildlife trafficking kingpin to 14 years in jail
- A court in Malawi has sentenced a Chinese national to 14 years in jail for masterminding an illegal wildlife trafficking cartel that operated across Southern Africa.
- Yunhua Lin and his accomplices, including his wife, were arrested in 2019 and found in possession of pangolin scales, elephant ivory, hippo teeth and rhino horns.
- Wildlife authorities have hailed the stiff sentence as “a message to all criminals out there that we are no longer functioning in a business-as-usual way.”

Creation of three new northern white rhinos embryos may indicate hope for other rhino species
- In July, BioRescue announced the creation of three new northern white rhino embryos, bringing the total to 12.
- Project leader Thomas Hildebrandt said he hopes to transfer a northern white rhino embryo into a female southern white rhino by the end of the year.
- Researchers and stakeholders are assessing whether it would be possible to employ similar methods to preserve genetic diversity in critically endangered Asian rhino species, weighing the risks of extracting eggs against the need for a backup plan.

Mongabay’s What-To-Watch list for September 2021
- In August, Mongabay explored sounds in Nature, the importance of homegardens, conservation of rhinos, sustainable solutions for overfishing and invasive plants, protecting forests around the world, and more.
- Researchers have found that growing biodiverse gardens at our houses is comparable with natural forested regions in the area, and that poking into rhino poop can help determine crucial information about the critically endangered animal.
- Add these videos to your watchlist for the month — you don’t need a Netflix, Prime or Disney+ subscription; watch these for free on YouTube.

Low genetic diversity is part of rhinos’ long-term history, study says
- A new study that reconstructs the rhino family tree by analyzing the genomes of all five living rhino species and three extinct species has found that low genetic diversity is part of rhinos’ long-term history.
- The study also found evidence to support the geographic hypothesis of rhino evolution, which places the two African species in a separate group from the three Asian species.
- However, genetic diversity is lowest and inbreeding highest in present-day rhinos, suggesting that recent human-driven population declines have impacted rhino genetics.
- Nonetheless, the study says rhinos appear to have adapted well to low genetic diversity and small populations sizes and recommends conservation efforts focus on increasing rhino numbers.

Captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos: Where the program stands today
- In a series of video interviews, Mongabay speaks with Sumatran rhino experts to get up-to-date information on efforts to breed the species in captivity.
- The interviews focus on three locations that host the vast majority of Sumatran rhinos, whose entire population is believed to number no more than 80.
- The interviews reveal fears stemming from the dire state of the species, as well as optimism that officials and conservationists are finally working with united purpose to keep the species from sliding into extinction.

To count Sumatran rhinos in the wild, look for their poop, study says
- Sumatran rhino droppings could help researchers solve the decades-long question of how many of the critically endangered rhinos are left in the wild.
- This method allows researchers to collect DNA samples without bothering rhinos in the wild.
- For more accurate estimates, the researchers also identified “microsatellite markers” that they can use to help distinguish between individual animals.
- Current estimates suggest there are fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos left on Earth, scattered in isolated populations on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

Indonesia reports two new Javan rhino calves in the species’ last holdout
- Indonesia has reported the sighting of two Javan rhino calves on different occasions in April and June.
- The new calves have boosted hopes of stable population growth for the nearly extinct species in its last habitat on Earth.
- While strict conservation measures have helped stabilize the population, the species still faces other threats from natural disasters, a resurgence in human encroachment, and the risk of contagious disease from livestock herds.

Development of third Sumatran rhino sanctuary advances to save species
- The development of a highly anticipated sanctuary for the Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesia’s Aceh province is advancing as part of conservation efforts to save the nearly extinct species.
- The planned facility will be the third in a network of Sumatran Rhino Sanctuaries to breed the species in captivity.
- Its location in the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra means it will have access to what is believed to be the largest population of the critically endangered species.
- Indonesia is now the only home in the world for Sumatran rhinos, a species decimated by a series of factors, from poaching to habitat loss and, more recently, insufficient births.

Private investors look to high-end tourism to fund conservation in Mozambique
- Karingani Game Reserve is a 150,000-hectare (371,000-acre) private nature reserve being developed in southwestern Mozambique that intends to rehabilitate the landscape and boost wildlife populations inside its borders.
- Operators of Karingani say the reserve will finance itself by attracting high-end tourism and measures its progress through a novel set of conservation indicators.
- Attracting private capital into conservation projects has long been proposed as a way to cover shortfalls from public and philanthropic funding sources, with Karingani being a recent example of this approach.
- But local communities have complained in recent years that the land Karingani is being developed on was signed over to government officials under false pretenses, raising questions about power imbalances in the model.

Two new Javan rhino calves spotted in the species’ last holdout
- Indonesia has announced sightings of two Javan rhino calves this year in Ujung Kulon National Park, the last place on Earth where the critically endangered species is found.
- The new additions bring the estimated population of the species to 73; conservationists have recorded at least one new calf a year joining the population since 2012.
- Despite the stable population growth, the rhinos remain under the looming threat of disease, natural disaster, and a resurgence in encroachment.

Wildlife trafficking, like everything else, has gone online during COVID-19
- Regional and national reports show a decline in illegal wildlife trade activities in Southeast Asia in 2020, with operations down by more than 50% across the most-traded animals.
- Despite the decrease, experts say traders have shifted from face-to-face interactions and increased their presence on online platforms.
- Authorities also reported confiscating caches of stockpiled animal parts, indicating that the trade continues amid the pandemic. Traders may be waiting for looser border controls to carry on with business, experts say.
- While these trends suggest that the trade will bounce back in a post-COVID-19 era, experts suggest strengthening enforcement collaboration, improving wildlife laws, and increasing awareness of the health risks posed by illegally poached wildlife.

South African dehorning initiative aims for ‘zero poached’ white rhinos
- Conservationists recently dehorned the entire white rhino population of Spioenkop Nature Reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province to decrease poaching incidents.
- Rhino poaching in South Africa has been steadily declining over the past several years, with dehorning efforts likely playing a part in protecting local populations.
- However, experts say there are still grave concerns for this near-threatened species, especially as wildlife reserves struggle to maintain security during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sumatran rhinos show low inbreeding — but when it happens, collapse is quick
- Fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain on Earth, and the species faces dire threats due to a low birth rate, habitat loss and fragmentation, and poaching.
- A new study finds that, despite its small size, the population retains significant genetic diversity, and likely has the genomic “toolkit” necessary to survive threats like climate change or disease.
- The findings are good news for conservationists, but also come with a warning: an analysis of a recently extinct subpopulation revealed that a rapid spike in inbreeding preceded their extinction.
- The research highlights dilemmas currently facing conservationists working to breed Sumatran rhinos in captivity: Should subspecies be mixed? And, when no alternatives exist, should captive rhinos be bred with their relatives?

Video: Doomed or viable? Sumatran rhino captive breeding faces a dilemma
- A new animated short film from Mongabay, illustrated by artist Roger Peet, depicts one of the most urgent questions facing experts trying to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction.
- With no more than 80 Sumatran rhinos left on Earth, many of them isolated into groups too small to be viable, the species’ natural birthrate is so low that experts have reached a consensus that human intervention is necessary to stave off extinction.
- The question now is which rhinos to capture: Isolated ones are less likely to be healthy and fertile, but removing rhinos from populations that are still breeding in the wild could risk the survival of these last few viable groups.

Podcast: Where oh where are the Sumatran rhinos?
- Sumatran rhinos are one of the most endangered large mammals on the planet, with no more than 80 left in the wild.
- Not only that but biologists are challenged to even find them in the dense rainforests they call home in order to conserve them via captive breeding.
- To shed light on the animal’s precarious situation and mysterious whereabouts, this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast series speaks with conservation biologist Wulan Pusparini.
- This ‘rhino search and rescue’ is a big challenge she tells host Mike DiGirolamo in this episode of the podcast.

Rarely seen Sumatran rhinos are now even more elusive as threats close in
- The wild Sumatran rhinos of Way Kambas National Park in Indonesia are becoming even more elusive in response to changes to their habitat, according to rhino expert Arief Rubianto.
- Fires and poaching of other species for bushmeat pose a serious threat to the critically endangered rhinos.
- Way Kambas is believed to be one of the last strongholds of the Sumatran rhino, with estimates of 12 to 33 wild rhinos, out of a global population of less than 80.
- Indonesian officials and conservationists are carrying out a census to get a better idea of the species’ true population to help inform conservation strategies.

Signs, but no sightings: The phantom rhinos of Sumatra’s Bukit Barisan Selatan
- Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Sumatra’s Lampung province is believed to be one of the last homes of the nearly extinct Sumatran rhinoceros.
- But the little evidence showing the existence of rhinos at the park has sparked concerns among some experts that the species may have already gone extinct there.
- While some Indonesian experts still believe Bukit Barisan Selatan holds a rhino population, the loss of forest to farms, roads and illegal encroachment inside the park makes that scenario increasingly unlikely.
- Indonesia is the last place on Earth with Sumatran rhinos, whose total population is estimated at fewer than 80 individuals.

Sumatran rhino conservation inspires a thriving creative economy
- Local communities in a Sumatran rhino stronghold are benefiting from a creative economy built up around the conservation of the critically endangered species.
- From collecting leaves to feed the rhinos, to selling wood carvings and wildlife-themed batik clothes, communities living around Way Kambas National Park are developing new income streams.
- Way Kambas is home to a captive-breeding center that is trying to shore up the flagging wild population.
- Indonesia is the last place on Earth with Sumatran rhinos, whose total population is estimated at fewer than 80 individuals.

Widodo Ramono, the man on a mission to save Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesian biologist Widodo Ramono has dedicated a lifetime to conserving the country’s Sumatran rhinos from extinction.
- A former government official, Widodo now leads a rhino conservation group that oversees a captive-breeding program at a sanctuary for Sumatran rhinos.
- To save the species, found only in Indonesia, Widodo says protecting its habitats from deforestation and poaching is the most important thing.
- Mongabay Indonesia recently spoke with Widodo about the country’s plans for rhinos and the challenges those plans face.

Why did the woolly rhino go extinct?
- Genetic analysis of the remnants of 14 woolly rhinos shows that a warming climate, not hunting, probably killed them off 14,000 years ago.
- The numbers of woolly rhinos remained constant until close to their extinction, and far after humans had migrated to their territory in Siberia.
- Genetic mutations suggest that the rhinos were so adapted to living in cold conditions that they could not survive when the climate rapidly warmed.

Snare traps decline, but still pose a threat to Leuser’s Sumatran rhinos
- The number of wire snares being found in Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem has declined in recent years, but the traps continue to pose a severe threat to the region’s critically endangered rhinos.
- Poachers set the snares to catch anything ranging from wild boars for bushmeat to trophy animals — including the native Sumatran rhinos, elephants and tigers.
- Increased patrols have managed to reduce the numbers of snares found in Leuser, from 1,069 in 2016 to 241 in 2019.
- Conservationists say the Indonesian government must crack down harder on the entire supply chain of the illegal trade in Sumatran rhino parts, from poachers to buyers overseas.

Podcast: Saving the singing rhino
- Sumatran rhinos are one of the most endangered large mammals on the planet, with no more than 80 left in the wild.
- Small in stature and docile by nature, they sport a coat of fur and sing songs reminiscent of a whale or dolphin.
- To shed light on the animal’s precarious situation, this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast series speaks with conservation biologist Wulan Pusparini and Mongabay senior correspondent Jeremy Hance about the unique challenges of conserving the creatures.
- They discuss the history of failed efforts, delayed actions, breakthroughs in conservation and breeding practices, and impactful efforts that are currently holding the line for this extremely vulnerable mammal.

Planned road projects threaten Sumatran rhino habitat, experts say
- Authorities in the Indonesian province of Aceh are planning 12 road-building projects through 2022, some of which will cut through the habitat of critically endangered Sumatran rhinos.
- The species is already under threat from forest fragmentation, which has isolated rhino subpopulations and led to the biggest threat to the animal: the inability to find other rhinos to mate with.
- Conservationists have called for full protection of the Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh to safeguard the rhinos’ habitat from the road projects.
- But even in a protected part of the ecosystem, Gunung Leuser National Park, deforestation is already taking place on the fringes.

Video: The Sumatran rhino is sliding into extinction. It doesn’t have to
- A new animated short film from Mongabay, illustrated by artist Roger Peet, depicts the Sumatran rhino’s slide toward extinction.
- No more than 80 Sumatran rhinos are believed to survive today, scattered across isolated and fragmented habitats in Indonesia.
- Driven to the brink of extinction by habitat loss and hunting, Sumatran rhinos today face an even more fundamental threat: experts fear that too few calves are being born to offset even natural deaths in the remaining populations.

‘Luckiest people’: Encountering a newborn Sumatran rhino in the wild
- In 2018, five rangers had a rare encounter with a newborn Sumatran rhinoceros in the forests of Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem.
- Leuser is known as one of the last strongholds of the Sumatran rhino, one of the most endangered large mammals on Earth.
- Conservationists have called for beefing up security across the Leuser Ecosystem to allow the rhinos there to feel secure enough to continue breeding.
- The species is down to no more than 80 individuals in the wild, with forest fragmentation and a low birth rate driving it toward extinction.

On World Rhino Day, ‘real work’ is still needed to save Sumatran rhinos
- September 22 marks World Rhino Day, which looks to bring attention to the protection of the two African and three Asian rhino species that exist today.
- Of these five species, the Sumatran rhino is in the greatest peril, described as the most endangered large mammal on Earth.
- Its population is estimated at fewer than 80 individuals living in small, isolated habitats in Indonesia, where a low birth rate (a result of their isolation due to habitat fragmentation) is now the biggest threat to their survival.
- Rhino experts have called on the Indonesian government to do “real work” to save the species, including on a captive-breeding program widely seen as the last feasible means of staving off extinction.

Two new Javan rhino calves are spotted in the species’ last holdout
- Camera traps have captured images of two newborn Javan rhinos this year in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park, the last place on Earth where the critically endangered species is found.
- There are an estimated 74 of the rhinos left, with the population increasing by at least one every year since 2012.
- Conservationists credit stringent protection of the rhinos’ habitat for helping reverse a decline driven by poaching and habitat loss.
- But the rhinos remain under the looming threat of disease, natural disaster, and a resurgence in encroachment.

Forest fires set by poachers threaten a refuge of the Sumatran rhino
- Fires set by poachers are a top cause of habitat degradation in Way Kambas National Park on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.
- The park is home to critically endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers and elephants, among hundreds of wildlife species.
- The burning on the fringes of the park spurs the growth of fresh grass, which draws the deer and boars that the poachers target.
- Park officials and conservationists are engaged with local communities to dissuade people from poaching, as well as replanting burned areas with hardier vegetation.

Sumatran rhino planned for capture is another female, Indonesian officials say
- Conservation officials in Indonesia have revealed that a wild Sumatran rhino planned for capture for a breeding program is a female, not a male.
- The rhino, named Pari, will join another female already at a breeding center in the Indonesian province on East Kalimantan.
- Female rhinos in captivity have been found to develop reproductive problems and infertility as a result of prolonged absence from a male, and conservationists fear this could happen to the rhino currently in captivity
- The Sumatran rhino is critically endangered, with fewer than 80 believed to be remaining in the wild.

‘Every tool in the box’ to save Sumatran rhinos: Q&A with Nina Fascione of IRF
- In March 2020, Nina Fascione was named the new executive director of the International Rhino Foundation (IRF).
- The IRF works to protect all five rhino species, but none is as imperiled at the Sumatran rhino, which numbers fewer than 80.
- Mongabay spoke with Fascione about her background, her new job, and her organization’s plans to save the Sumatran rhino.

Indonesia’s new lobster export policy threatens Javan rhino habitat
- A decision allowing the resumption of lobster larvae exports threatens a national park in Indonesia that’s the last refuge of the critically endangered Javan rhino.
- Only 72 of the rhinos are left on Earth, and tend to frequent a coastal area of Ujung Kulon National Park that is now open to lobster fishers under a controversial decision by the fisheries ministry.
- Park officials and conservationists say the biggest threat to the species is human activity, and a potential influx of more than 300 fishers into their habitat could prove devastating.
- Conservationists say there needs to be an ecosystem-wide solution that minimizes the threat to the rhinos while also considering the livelihood of local fishers.

Indonesia identifies rhino to capture for breeding, but will have to wait until next year
- Indonesian officials have identified a wild Sumatran rhino they plan to catch in Borneo for a captive-breeding program, but have not said whether it’s a male or female.
- The planned capture will have to wait until next year at least, with officials citing the COVID-19 pandemic as an obstacle.
- Officials already have a female Sumatran rhino at the Kelian Lestari captive-breeding facility in Borneo, and hope to either find her a mate from the wild or fertilize her eggs with sperm from rhinos held at the Way Kambas facility in Sumatra.
- The Sumatran and Bornean populations are distinct subspecies of the Sumatran rhino, and conservationists agree on the need to interbreed them to boost the genetic diversity of a species that numbers fewer than 80.

For two rhino species on brink of extinction, it’s collaboration vs. stonewalling
- An ocean apart, and genetically separated into two distinct genera, the Sumatran and northern white rhinos have something in common: populations so small that researchers are looking to artificial reproductive technologies (ART) to ensure their survival.
- The situation is particularly dire for the northern white rhino, with just two known living individuals, both female. However, in 2019, a team of international experts successfully created northern white rhino embryos in a lab.
- With an estimated population of 80, Sumatran rhinos are more numerous, but ART efforts have been slowed by strict regulations imposed by the Indonesian government.

COVID-19 halts matchmaking attempt for female Sumatran rhino in Borneo
- Conservationists searching for a wild male Sumatran orangutan to join a lone female as part of a captive-breeding program have had to call off the search for the rest of the year.
- The field work by conservationists in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province has been halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other activities.
- The captive breeding programs is believed by experts to be the most viable means left to save the global population of the nearly extinct species.
- Indonesia is now the last refuge for Sumatran rhinos, with a population of fewer than 80 individuals.

Marcellus Adi Riyanto: The Indonesian vet who lived for the Sumatran rhino
- Trained as a veterinarian, Indonesian conservationist Marcellus Adi Riyanto devoted his career to the study and preservation of Indonesia’s rhinos.
- Marcellus spent a decade working at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park before founding a community-oriented conservation group known as ALeRT. He continued his work with rhinos at ALeRT, which was recently charged with managing a newly established rhino sanctuary in Indonesian Borneo.
- Marcellus fell gravely ill in April 2020, dying just five days after his 55th birthday.
- Conservationists in Indonesia recall Marcellus as a dedicated, determined and creative colleague and mentor.

Poaching in Indonesia’s biodiverse Leuser Ecosystem on the rise amid COVID-19
- Poaching is on the rise in the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, the last place on Earth that’s home to rhinos, tigers, orangutans and elephants.
- Conservationists say the illegal hunting appears to be by locals targeting wildlife for food, and not for the trade in animal parts or pets that typically target the more exotic species.
- They attribute the increase to economic hardship faced by local communities amid shutdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The pandemic response has also halted patrols in Leuser, with ranger teams unable to mobilize as normal.

A new sanctuary for the Sumatran rhino is delayed amid COVID-19 measures
- Indonesia has been working on a new sanctuary for the captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos in the Leuser Ecosystem in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
- But measures imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed down the progress of the facility, which had been slated for completion next year.
- Aceh’s Leuser Ecosystem is touted by experts as the most promising habitat for wild rhinos because it’s believed to hold the largest population of the species, at about 12 individuals.
- Indonesia is now the last refuge for the world’s Sumatran rhino population, which numbers between 30 and 80 individuals.

U.S. fund that supports Sumatran rhino research faces deep cuts under Trump
- Established in 1994, the U.S. Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation fund provides grants to support international conservation efforts.
- The fund, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, supports organizations working to protect various tiger and rhino species, including the Sumatran rhino in Indonesia.
- While the law allows for spending of up to $10 million per year, the United States Congress has historically provided about $3.5 million annually. Now, the Trump administration is pushing to slash funding to just $1.575 million.
- Previous grants have supported anti-poaching patrols in Sumatran rhino habitat, and research into Sumatran rhino genetics.

Reproductive woes spell need for more viable females in Sumatran rhino program
- A captive-breeding program for Sumatran rhinos should focus on trapping fertile females from the wild, scientists say in a new paper.
- The study looked at the high prevalence of reproductive diseases among captured female rhinos and determined that those in the wild were also susceptible to these conditions.
- The recommendation is markedly different from the Indonesian government’s current focus on capturing so-called doomed rhinos — those defined as living alone or in groups too small to sustain natural breeding in the wild.
- Even if more fertile females are captured, there’s no guarantee that they will go on to produce calves, according to the scientist who pioneered the captive-breeding process for the species.

Poaching and the problem with conservation in Africa (commentary)
- Poaching is a complex topic that cannot be solved by myopic, top-down enforcement approaches. Crime syndicates may be fuelling the poaching of elephant and rhino but they are not the source of the problem. Rather than treat the symptoms by spending millions on weapons and anti-poaching forces, which experience has repeatedly shown does not stop poaching, there is a need to understand the underlying causes of the poaching problem if it is to be solved.
- Across Africa, state-led anti-poaching forces, no matter how well funded and equipped, have been unable to curtail the high levels of poaching currently observed.
- Devolving power and benefits to local communities will enable local communities to acquire full responsibility for anti-poaching operations, which they are much better positioned to do than external agencies who do not have the social networks and local knowledge needed to effectively perform oversight functions in the local area. As witnessed in the Luangwa Valley and Namibian conservancies, there is every likelihood that there will be a significant decline in poaching once community conservation is properly implemented.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Rhino poaching in South Africa declines for fifth straight year
- South Africa reports that rhino poaching has declined for a fifth straight year in the country, with 594 rhino poached in 2019, down from the 769 rhino killed for their horns in 2018.
- According to an official press release from the South African government, the decline in poaching in 2019 is due to a combination of measures, including deployment of technologies that allow for better reaction times to poaching incidents, improved information collection and sharing between law enforcement agencies, greater cooperation between entities at the regional and national level, and more meaningful engagement of the private sector, NGOs, and donors.
- There were 2,014 incursions and poaching-related activities recorded in South Africa’s Kruger National Park in 2019, leading to 327 rhinos being lost. Some 178 alleged poachers were arrested within the Park last year, while 332 arrests were made throughout the country.

Indonesia-WWF split puts rhino breeding project in Borneo in limbo
- A recent decision by Indonesia’s environment ministry to abruptly cut ties with WWF Indonesia has thrown a crucial effort to conserve Sumatran rhinos into limbo.
- WWF Indonesia had been deeply involved in an initiative to start a captive-breeding program for the species in Indonesian Borneo.
- Experts agree that captive-breeding of the species is the best way to boost a birth rate that has dropped below natural replacement levels, and the capture of wild rhinos from Borneo was seen as key to boosting the available genetic pool.
- It’s not clear how the program will now proceed, but WWF Indonesia says it remains open to supporting the government on the conservation cause.

Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesia’s Aceh province is considering a sharia, or Islamic, bylaw to strengthen punishment for the illegal wildlife trade, in a move that could help protect the critically endangered Sumatran rhino.
- The bylaw, if passed, would prescribe up to 100 lashes of the cane for anyone convicted of hunting, killing or trading in protected species, including rhinos.
- The province’s Leuser Ecosystem is believed to hold up to 50 of the maximum 80 Sumatran rhinos estimated to be left on Earth.
- The Indonesian government also plans to set up its third Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Leuser, part of a network of captive-breeding centers aimed at boosting the species’ population.

Audio: Ami Vitale on how meeting Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, changed her life
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Ami Vitale, a photographer for National Geographic who documented the death of the last male northern white rhino, Sudan.
- As celebrated as her nature and wildlife photography is, Vitale started off as a war zone photographer. She came to realize that humanity’s strained relationship with the natural world was behind each of the human conflicts she covered, however, and then, when she first met Sudan in 2009, she was moved to focus on nature photography.
- On today’s episode, Vitale tells us about how meeting Sudan changed her life and discusses a few more of the stories she’s documented throughout her highly decorated career, including China’s efforts to rehab its panda population and the wildlife sanctuary in Kenya that rescues orphaned elephants and helps them return to the wild.

Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
- Efforts to breed the critically endangered Sumatran rhino in captivity have faced myriad challenges ranging from mysterious deaths and reproductive health problems to bureaucratic hurdles.
- Now, a sanctuary in Indonesia that has previously witnessed the birth of two healthy calves is facing a new, unexpected obstacle: relationship problems.
- One pair of rhinos, Andalas and Ratu, have successfully produced two calves. But after keepers attempted to mate Andalas with a second female, his previous mate now rejects him.
- Producing as many calves from the captive rhinos is a top priority in efforts to conserve the species, whose wild population is fewer than 80 individuals.

Indonesia to capture 3 wild Sumatran rhinos to add to breeding population
- Indonesia hopes to capture three Sumatran rhinos from the wild next year to stock up a captive-breeding sanctuary, in a bid to boost the population of the critically endangered species.
- The sanctuary, opened in 1996 to provide a heavily protected semi-wild habitat for captive rhinos to breed, is already home to seven rhinos, two of which were conceived and born there.
- Experts are also calling on the government to protect the last remaining wild habitats of the rhinos so that there’s somewhere to release them back into once the situation allows.
- Fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos are believed to live in small populations scattered in the dwindling forests of Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo.

Newly spotted calves boost Javan rhino population to 72
- Four new Javan rhinoceros calves have been observed through a camera-trap survey in recent months in the species’ last habitat, putting the estimated global population at 72 individuals.
- Researchers have celebrated the news, calling it a positive outcome of long-running efforts by the Indonesian government and conservation groups to protect the rhino’s habitat to allow it to breed naturally.
- Poaching and habitat loss have driven the species to near extinction; it now survives in a precarious habitat within Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park on the island of Java.

Time is running out for Southeast Asia
- Several species and subspecies have gone extinct in the last 100 years. Others remain missing.
- Most of Southeast Asia’s large-bodied animals are now threatened with extinction.
- Deforestation and the wildlife trade have even left smaller-bodied species decimated as well.
- Southeast Asia has to decide if preserving its irreplaceable and unique wildlife is a priority – or the losses will continue to mount.

Malaysia’s last Sumatran rhino dies, leaving Indonesia as the final refuge
- Iman, the last Sumatran rhino left in Malaysia, died over the weekend after a long battle with uterine tumors.
- Her death has sparked an outpouring of grief among wildlife conservationists, as it meant the species is now fully extinct in Malaysia, after being declared extinct in the wild in 2015.
- Named after a river near where she was captured in 2014 for a captive-breeding program, Iman was believed to be 25 years old when she died.
- The fate of this critically endangered species now lies with a tiny population of no more than 80 individuals in Indonesia, where captive breeding has yielded some success in recent years.

Indonesia plans IVF for recently captured Sumatran rhino
- In a bid to save the nearly extinct Sumatran rhino, Indonesia will attempt to harvest and fertilize an egg cell from a lone female at a captive-breeding center in Borneo.
- The sperm for the in vitro fertilization attempt will come from a male at a captive-breeding center in Sumatra; combining the Sumatran and Bornean lineages is expected to help boost the gene pool for an animal whose global population may be as low as 40.
- Conservationists anticipate obstacles, however: Pahu, the female, is quite old at about 25, and is possibly too small to be able to carry a regular-sized offspring to term.
- The planned attempt by Indonesia comes after conservationists in Malaysia tried and failed to carry out an IVF treatment there, with both the age of the female rhino and lack of access to quality sperm cited for the failure.

Malaysian attempt at Sumatran rhino IVF fails on low quality of sperm
- A recent effort to produce a Sumatran rhino embryo from egg and sperm samples taken from the last of the species in Malaysia has failed, officials said.
- The low quality of the sperm, extracted in 2015 and 2016 from an aging rhino that has since died, was cited as the main cause of the failure to fertilize the egg.
- Malaysian officials say they will continue to improve and attempt their in vitro fertilization attempts, and have called on Indonesia to send sperm samples from younger rhinos held in Sumatra.
- Indonesia has refused to send any samples, citing the need for a formal agreement, but conservationists say that captive-breeding of Sumatran rhinos is the only feasible solution to protect the species from extinction.

At India’s Assam Zoo, decades of experience lead to rhino-breeding success
- Assam State Zoo in northeastern India has been breeding greater one-horned rhinos in captivity since the 1960s.
- However, until 2011 the country lacked a formal, nationally coordinated program dedicated to maintaining a viable captive population of the species, which is considered by the IUCN to be vulnerable to extinction due to poaching.
- India launched an official captive-breeding initiative in 2011. One calf has already been born at the Assam Zoo as part of the program, and another is on the way. An additional six have been born in the Patna Zoo in India’s Bihar state.

Legal and illegal trade negatively impacting survival and wellbeing of Africa’s wildlife: Report
- Released last week by the London-based NGO World Animal Protection to coincide with World Animal Day, the report looks at the “Big 5” and “Little 5” most-in-demand species and how trade in those animals impacts their wellbeing and conservation status.
- Between 2011 and 2015, some 1.2 million animal skins from the “Big 5” African wildlife species identified in the report as being most in-demand — the Nile crocodile, the Cape fur seal, Hartmann’s mountain zebra, the African elephant, and the common hippo — were legally sold.
- More than 1.5 million live animals belonging to one of the “Little 5” African species — the ball python, the African grey parrot, the emperor scorpion, the leopard tortoise, and the savannah monitor lizard — were exported for the exotic pet trade between 2011 and 2015, the report finds.

For India’s flood-hit rhinos, refuge depends increasingly on humans
- Kaziranga National Park in India’s Assam state is home to almost 70 percent of the world’s 3,500 greater one-horned rhinos.
- The park regularly floods during monsoon season. This natural phenomenon is essential to the ecosystem, but can be deadly for animals: 400 animals died in the 2017 floods, including more than 30 rhinos. This year, around 200 animals have died so far, including around a dozen rhinos.
- With increased infrastructure and tourism development around the park, animals’ natural paths to higher ground are often blocked.
- Authorities have responded by building artificial highlands within the park. Some criticize this approach, but park officials credit the highlands for reducing the death toll of this year’s floods.

Sumatra survey looks to identify at-risk rhinos for captive breeding
- The Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra is home to as many as 50 Sumatran rhinos, out of no more than 80 believed to survive in the wild.
- Surveys in the area have identified some subpopulations large enough to breed naturally, as well as isolated individuals or small groups unlikely to find mates.
- Indonesia’s current plan calls for larger groups to be protected in situ, while more isolated rhinos are to be gathered into sanctuaries for a captive-breeding program.
- Both national and local officials back a plan to create a new sanctuary in the northern Sumatran province of Aceh.

Bid to breed Sumatran rhino is handicapped by bureaucratic ‘quibbling’
- A group of international scientists working in Malaysia have successfully extracted an egg cell from the country’s last Sumatran rhino and injected sperm into it, in a last-ditch attempt at breeding the world’s most threatened rhino species.
- However, the scientists say the prospects of a successful fertilization are “not bright,” given the poor quality of the genetic samples they had to work with.
- They blame a bureaucratic impasse between Malaysia and Indonesia for depriving them of high-quality sperm from rhinos held in captivity in Indonesia, which they say would have given a better chance of fertilization.
- An Indonesian official says no exchange of genetic material, including sperm and eggs, can proceed until the requisite paperwork is signed, but conservationists say this is “quibbling” at a time when the species faces extinction.

On World Rhino Day, looking back on an eventful year
- September 22 marks World Rhino Day, a global event established to celebrate the world’s five rhinoceros species, and to reflect on the challenges facing them.
- The year that has elapsed since World Rhino Day 2018 has been a eventful one for rhino conservation.
- Here, we look back at Mongabay’s coverage of some of the biggest stories from both Africa and Asia.

Nepal to conduct, self-fund, rhino census in March 2020
- In 2019 a planned rhino census in Nepal was called off after wildlife officials failed to raise the necessary funds from donors.
- The country’s finance ministry recently announced that will support a new rhino census, to be held in March 2020. The government has allocated 11 million rupees of the total 16 million rupees ($140,000) the census is estimated to cost.
- Nepal has succeeded in virtually eliminating rhino poaching, but large numbers of rhinos have died of unknown or natural causes in the country’s sanctuaries, adding urgency to calls for a new census to be held.
- The decision to self-fund the census comes as the government is promoting a variety of populist, nationalist projects.

Malawi sentences pangolin smugglers, cracks down on wildlife crime
- Two Malawian nationals arrested in May and suspected of being part of one of Africa’s largest transnational wildlife trafficking syndicates have now been sentenced to three years in prison by a Malawian court.
- The suspected kingpin of the trafficking network, a Chinese national named Yunhua Lin, was arrested in August this year following a three-month manhunt and is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 11.
- Lin’s wife, Qin Hua Zhang, and eight others who had been arrested during the May raids are due in court on Sept. 12, and further hearings have been scheduled throughout the month.

Calls for natural solution over man-made one in flood-ravaged rhino refuge
- Kaziranga National Park in India, the global stronghold of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, has 144 artificial highlands built to help animals find refuge during the annual floods that hit the region.
- Experts say the artificial highlands are merely temporary solutions and won’t be beneficial over the long term.
- Some say the artificial highlands will lead to more erosion and siltation in the grasslands than occurs naturally. Moreover, only rhinos seem to be using the artificial highlands, while other animals tend to move toward natural highlands in neighboring hills.
- The real solution, some experts say, lies in keeping the migration routes that the animals follow to reach their natural highlands free of human settlements and commercial establishments.

Death on the Brahmaputra: The rhino, the rangers, and the usual suspects
- In February 2018, a greater one-horned rhino wandered from India’s Orang National Park into the nearby Burachapori-Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary.
- In September 2018, officials lost track of the rhino. In June 2019, the rhino’s buried remains, and a bullet, were discovered close to a guard camp in Burachapori-Laokhowa.
- Officials in Burachapori-Laokhowa did not officially report the rhino missing until the matter was leaked to the press more than a month later.
- Suspicion has been cast, variously, on forest staff, illegal settlers and illegal fishers.

Europe-bred rhinos join South African cousins to repopulate Rwanda park
- Five critically endangered eastern black rhinos have been flown from Europe to Akagera National Park in Rwanda.
- Eastern black rhino populations across the region are small and isolated, with the risk of inbreeding damaging long-term genetic viability.
- The rhinos come from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) breeding program and will add vitally needed fresh genetics into Rwanda’s fledgling population, made up of rhinos bred in South Africa.

Is the rhino horn trade a cartel? Economic analysis suggests it works like one
- Economist Adrian Lopes used data modeling to explore the links between rhino horn suppliers in India and South Africa.
- His findings suggest a market model in which suppliers in the two countries collude rather than compete, setting a quantity and price that maximizes profits all around.
- Lopes’s research also indicates that stricter conservation laws can reduce the number of rhinos being killed, but that corruption and institutional instability can erode those gains.

Indonesia agrees to attempt Sumatran rhino IVF with eggs from Malaysia
- Conservationists have welcomed a long-awaited agreement by Indonesia and Malaysia to move ahead with assisted reproductive technology for the captive breeding of the nearly extinct Sumatran rhino.
- Indonesia has long balked at sending rhino sperm to Malaysia for use in artificial insemination, but has now agreed to accept eggs from Malaysia to carry out in vitro fertilization.
- If successful, the program would give the species a much-needed boost in genetic diversity.
- Scientists in Germany last year used IVF to successfully produced embryos — though not a baby — of white rhinos, an African species.

When it comes to captive breeding, not all Sumatran rhinos are equal
- A new partnership called Sumatran Rhino Rescue aims to capture critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceroses to reinvigorate a captive-breeding program.
- Most experts agree that captive breeding is necessary to prevent extinction; with wild populations small and fragmented, too few baby rhinos are being born to keep the species alive.
- The current plan approved by the Indonesian government focuses on capturing “doomed” or “isolated” animals in populations too small to survive in the long term.
- However, female Sumatran rhinos living in isolation are particularly susceptible to reproductive problems, leading some experts to argue that it makes more sense to focus on capturing rhinos from healthier populations where rhinos are known to be breeding successfully — perhaps at the risk of harming the survival prospects of those populations.

Search for a new home for Javan rhinos put on hold
- The Indonesian government says plans to establish a second habitat for the critically endangered Javan rhinoceros have been put on hold.
- The species numbers an estimated 68 individuals, all of them corralled in a national park on the western tip of the island of Java.
- Conservationists had for years considered finding a second habitat outside the park to establish a new population of rhinos, given the risks they currently face from disease and natural disasters.
- However, the top contender for a second habitat currently serves as a military training ground, leaving conservationists to find ways to expand the rhinos’ suitable habitat within the national park.

New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families
- A new short film, titled Sides of a Horn, looks at the impacts of the illegal trade of rhino horn on a community in South Africa.
- The 17-minute film follows two brothers-in-law, one who is a wildlife ranger and another who contemplates poaching as a way to pay for his ailing wife’s medical care.
- A trip to South Africa in 2016 inspired British filmmaker Toby Wosskow to write and direct the short feature, which was publicly released June 25.

Keeping stray rhinos safe is a challenge on fringes of Nepal park
- Since 2018, two rhinos have fallen into septic tanks in settlements near Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, one of which died.
- These incidents highlight the difficulties in keeping wandering rhinos safe amid a building boom in the park’s buffer zones.
- Park authorities and municipal officials have traded blame over who should be responsible for developing and enforcing wildlife-friendly building codes.
- Adding to the problem, many residents lack the resources to plan buildings according to existing codes, much less the more stringent standards of wildlife-friendly codes, and enforcement is already a challenge

Sumatran rhinos to get a new sanctuary in Leuser Ecosystem
- A third captive-breeding sanctuary for the nearly extinct Sumatran rhino is set to be built in Indonesia, according to a top official.
- The facility, scheduled to open in 2021, will be located within the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, home to what’s believed to be one of the largest populations of the critically endangered species.
- Global and local rhino conservation groups have welcomed the plan and pledge to help with financial and technical support for the new facility.
- Indonesia currently has two captive-breeding centers for the rhinos: in Sumatra’s Way Kambas National Park, which holds seven rhinos, and Borneo’s Kelian forest, which has a single rhino.

Homestay programs in Nepal’s rhino hub hold promise and pitfalls for locals
- When faced with criticism that local people don’t benefit from wildlife tourism to Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, officials and conservationists point to homestay programs set up in communities on the park’s borders.
- These homestay programs aim to provide the communities with alternative livelihoods and to create an incentive to protect forests and wildlife.
- In the villages of Amaltari and Barauli, two very different homestay programs have been established, catering to different groups of visitors. Both models have their strengths, but also their shortcomings.

Vets rule out poaching and disease in recent death of rare Javan rhino
- In March, a Javan rhinoceros was found dead in a protected area at the western tip of the Indonesian island.
- A necropsy carried out by veterinarians has now determined that the young rhino bled to death, due to injuries likely sustained during a fight with an adult male rhino.
- The finding rules out earlier fears that the rhino may have been killed by poachers or contracted an infectious disease from livestock living near the park.
- The estimated population of the critically endangered animals is now at a minimum 68 individuals.

Last male rhino in Malaysia dies
- A Sumatran rhino affectionately known as Tam died May 27 following months of poor health.
- Tam was the last male Sumatran rhino known to survive in Malaysia. One female of the species is now living in Malaysia.
- When he was captured in 2008, researchers hoped he would contribute to efforts to breed the critically endangered species in captivity. Tam died without reproducing.

Malaysia’s last male rhino is fading fast, officials say
- Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino, Tam, has experienced an abrupt decline in health due to old age, authorities say.
- Veterinarians and rhino keepers at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Sabah state are providing round-the-clock palliative care, but say Tam appears to have suffered multiple organ failure.
- If he dies, Malaysia would be left with one last Sumatran rhino, a female, Iman, whose own health has weakened due to a ruptured tumor in her uterus.
- Conservationists say stakeholders, including the government of Indonesia, home to most of the remaining Sumatran rhinos on Earth, have been far too slow to work together on efforts to save the species.

Javan rhino found dead in Indonesia, bringing global population down to 68
- The body of a juvenile male Javan rhinoceros was discovered last month in a mud pit in Ujung Kulon National Park, the sole remaining habitat for the species.
- The death of the rhino, known as Manggala, brings the known global population of his species down to 68 individuals.
- The body was intact when found, and preliminary investigations indicated the rhino did not die due to an infectious disease. A detailed post-mortem is being conducted, with results expected May 7.
- The body bore multiple wounds, leading park officials to suspect Manggala may have been attacked by an adult rhinoceros.

To rescue Sumatran rhinos, Indonesia starts by counting them first
- In February, authorities in Indonesia held an exercise for Sumatran rhino researchers to track and tally the remaining wild population of the species.
- The government aims to finalize an official count of the critically endangered rhino within three years, according to the environment ministry.
- Natural breeding for the rhinos has been particularly difficult as the remaining individuals live in fragmented lowland forests away from each other. On top of that, rhinos are slow breeders and the females have a short fertility period.
- Estimates of the current size of the wild Sumatran rhino population range from 30 to 100 individuals. Another nine live in captivity in Indonesia and Malaysia.

No rhino census this year as Nepal runs short of funds for survey
- A planned census of Nepal’s greater one-horned rhinoceros will not take place this year due to a lack of funds.
- Revenue from ticket sales at national parks is divided between the government’s general budget and funds to support local communities, leaving wildlife officials dependent on donors to finance activities like the census.
- This year’s census was believed to be particularly critical because large numbers of Nepal’s rhinos are dying due to unexplained or natural causes, prompting questions about the carrying capacity of Chitwan National Park, the country’s rhino stronghold.
- Experts believe a census this year could reveal a decline in population, a politically unpalatable outcome in a country where rhino conservation is a matter of national prestige.

Planning without action will see the Javan rhino go extinct (commentary)
- Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia’s Java island is the last remaining habitat on Earth for the critically endangered Javan rhinoceros.
- The rhino population is holding steady, but its survival is threatened by natural disasters and a genetic bottleneck due to its small population.
- Conservation efforts, particularly finding a second home for these creatures in a lower-risk area, have long been planned, and now is the time to implement all of them to protect the rhinos from extinction.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Better than sex? For hard-to-breed rhinos, technology strives for a solution
- Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are being developed to improve the outcomes of captive-breeding programs for rhinos.
- If successful, these efforts could help create a self-sustaining reserve population and help diversify the gene pool of wild populations.
- ARTs have been successfully used in both humans and livestock since the 1970s, but have not been as effective in wildlife species such as rhinos.
- Experts say they believe ART could play an important role in rhino conservation, but caution that these technologies are only one part of the solution.

Nepal reckons with the dark side of its rhino conservation success
- A recent film glorifying rangers in Chitwan National Park, and a Buzzfeed investigation highlighting human rights abuses by those same rangers, have prompted debate over Nepal’s conservation practices.
- The country has achieved remarkable success in protecting species like the greater one-horned rhino, and conservationists say efforts to engage with and support communities around Chitwan have greatly increased since the 1990s.
- Rights activists say local people suffer due to a prevailing attitude that disregards the rights of historically marginalized people and denies them a genuine role in policymaking.

West Bengal’s rhino population hits a record high
- A census carried out in February in India’s West Bengal state counted 231 rhinos in Jaldapara National Park and 52 in Gorumara National Park, up from 204 and 49, respectively, in 2015.
- Both figures are the highest recorded since authorities began taking official rhino counts in the 1920s.
- While encouraged by the rising rhino numbers, conservationists have raised concerns about the skewed sex ratios in both parks, a scarcity of grazing land, and the ever-present threat of poaching.

Invasive plants a fast-growing threat to India’s rhinos
- In 2018, biologists observed the invasive plant Parthenium, known locally as congress grass, establishing itself in grasslands of India’s Pobitora National Park.
- Invasive species threaten protected areas in Assam state, and herbivores like the greater one-horned rhinos that live within them, by crowding out the native plants animals rely on for food.
- Each of Assam state’s four rhino reserves currently faces threats from invasive plants including Parthenium, Mimosa, Mikania and water hyacinth.
- Experts are contemplating the use of several strategies to tackle invasive plants, including manual removal and the introduction of biological control agents such as the Mexican beetle that feeds on Parthenium.

Encounters with the Javan rhino (commentary)
- Relatively little is known about the behavior of the Javan rhinoceros, a famously elusive species with a global population of less than 70 individuals.
- Understanding the rhinos’ behavior and how they interact with their environment is key to conservation efforts.
- In this commentary, researcher Haeruddin Sadjudin looks back on four decades of work with rhinos to compile anecdotes that shed light on some characteristics of the species.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

As extinction looms, can Javan rhinos survive in Ujung Kulon? (Commentary)
- Indonesia’s Javan rhinos were widely hunted until they were protected by a Colonial-era law in 1910. Even then, enforcement was limited.
- Since 1921, the Ujung Kulon peninsula in western Java has been protected as a reserve for Javan rhinos. It is now the species’ sole remaining habitat.
- Ujung Kulon’s rhino population faces numerous challenges including invasive plants, competition from wild cattle and the risk of natural disasters and disease.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Nepal, in a bid to create a new rhino population, pauses to take stock
- Efforts to establish a population of Indian rhinos in Nepal’s Bardia National Park have a checkered history.
- The park received 87 rhinos from Chitwan National Park between 1986 and 2003, a process that continued even as Bardia was buffeted by armed conflict. Only 22 of those rhinos survived.
- Two years ago, Bardia began receiving rhinos again, although so far just eight of a planned 25 have been relocated. Two of them have since died.

Is there another Javan Rhino habitat as ideal as Ujung Kulon? (Commentary)
- Ujung Kulon National Park is the last habitat of the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus), a critically endangered species.
- A recent tsunami increased calls for a new habitat to be found in which to establish a second population.
- Finding an ideal habitats elsewhere is important, but not as easy as some experts and conservationists think.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

India-Nepal agreement to boost transborder conservation of rhinos, tigers
- India and Nepal, which share a border running more than 1,850 kilometers (1,150 miles), are set to sign an agreement strengthening transboundary conservation of species like the Indian rhino, Bengal tiger and Asian elephant.
- The memorandum of understanding is expected to be signed before India’s upcoming parliamentary elections, slated for April and May this year.
- The MOU is expected to put an emphasis on cooperation for the conservation and protection of tigers, whose population has increased in both countries over the past decade.

Nepal court blocks road construction in rhino stronghold of Chitwan Park
- Chitwan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to the second-largest population of greater one-horned rhinos, as well as Bengal tigers and hundreds of other species.
- Plans to construct road and rail links through the park alarmed conservationists and landed Nepal with a formal warning from UNESCO.
- On Feb. 13, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government not to build new roads inside Chitwan without approval from UNESCO, the park management and other stakeholders.

Conservation couture: Batik artisans make rhinos a fashion statement
- Campaigners in Indonesia have blended rhino conservation with artisanal batik production to raise awareness about saving the critically endangered species.
- Under a program started by a conservationist, local batik designers are incorporating rhino motifs into the hand-dyed textiles, in the hope that this will get the public thinking about rhinos.
- There may be as few as 30 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild, following decades of poaching, habitat loss, and climate-induced forest fragmentation.

Rhinos or roads? Nepal deals with a tricky balancing act
- Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to the world’s second largest population of greater one-horned rhinos, as well as nearly 100 Bengal tigers and more than 54 other mammal species.
- After a 2016 mission, UNESCO warned that Chitwan could be placed on the World Heritage in Danger list if a number of planned infrastructure projects were completed as proposed.
- Since then, the largest projects have been suspended or rerouted; now, conservationists say they are more concerned by the impacts of unplanned urbanization and local flood-control projects.
- Local officials often struggle to balance protecting Chitwan’s ecosystem against the popular demand for infrastructure development projects.

Deadly tsunami leaves Javan rhinos untouched, but peril persists
- A tsunami that killed more than 400 people in Indonesia has left the last remaining population of Javan rhinos unscathed.
- The species’ last habitat, Ujung Kulon National Park, was hit by the Dec. 22 tsunami caused by an eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano, but the rhinos were not in harm’s way, officials have confirmed.
- The disaster has once again highlighted the constant peril that the species lives under, and strengthened calls to establish a new habitat elsewhere to ensure the survival of the rhino.

The long journey to saving the Sumatran rhino, via Borneo (commentary)
- The presence of near-extinct Sumatran rhinos in Indonesian Borneo was for a long time the stuff of legend, with no hard evidence to support it. Still, wildlife experts spared no effort to investigate every scrap of information.
- Those rumors eventually bore fruit with the capture of two individuals by conservationists in the past two years. The first rhino, however, died of injuries sustained before its capture.
- Today, a facility in eastern Borneo holds the other rhino, a female, with around-the-clock care from vets and experts, as part of a wider effort to kick-start a captive-breeding program.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Audio: The true story of how 96 critically endangered sea turtle hatchlings survived New York City
- On this episode, the true story of how 96 critically endangered sea turtles survived a New York City beach — with a little help from some dedicated conservationists.
- This past summer, beachgoers in New York City spotted a nesting Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle on West Beach, which is on National Park Service land.
- Luckily, two of those beachgoers had the presence of mind to call the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation’s 24-hour hotline to report the nesting turtle — which very likely saved the lives of 96 Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle hatchlings.

In the belly of the beast: journalist delves into wildlife trafficking
- Rachel Nuwer, who has written for Mongabay, Smithsonian, the New York Times and other publications, published a new book in September, “Poached,” which delves deeply into the global wildlife trafficking epidemic.
- Her book looks into the origins of the wildlife trade, its mechanisms, markets, and solutions. It covers charismatic mammals (elephants, rhinos and tigers), as well as the non-charismatic (pangolins and snakes).
- In this exclusive Mongabay Q&A, the author shares some of her most harrowing moments on the trail of global wildlife traffickers. The scariest thing of all: how accepting people can often be to the slaughter of millions of wild animals, and to the extermination of species, so as to be served a rare meat or a bogus cure.
- Still, Nuwer finds hope in the courageous individuals who fight the trade.

For elusive Javan rhinos, camera traps are a benevolent Big Brother
- Camera traps in an Indonesian park have recorded the first ever video of Javan rhinos mating in the wild.
- The critically endangered species, with an estimated population of just 68 individuals, is notoriously elusive, evading even the conservationists and rangers responsible for studying and protecting it.
- The network of 120 camera traps, introduced in 2010, has given researchers and park officials valuable insights into the rhinos’ biology and behavior, and helped inform conservation strategies for the species.

First wild Sumatran rhino in Borneo captured for breeding campaign
- A female Sumatran rhinoceros has been captured in Indonesian Borneo and moved to a local sanctuary as part of an initiative to conserve the near-extinct species through captive breeding.
- A team of veterinarians and rhino experts is now caring for the rhino around the clock, and will seek to establish whether she is viable for breeding.
- Conservationists and government officials have welcomed news of the capture and rescue, a key step toward replenishing a species whose total population may be as low as 30 individuals.
- The capture comes two years after another female rhino was trapped in the same district, only to die less than a month later.

Jaw-dropping footage: conservationists catch Javan rhino in mud wallow
- With just 68 individuals surviving in a single site, the Javan rhino is one of the world’s rarest and most endangered animals.
- The species is so elusive that conservationists have studied it for years without meeting one in the flesh. Even images are rare.
- Now, newly released video and photos from a recent expedition by Global Wildlife Conservation and WWF show a Javan rhino wallowing in a mud bath.

China restores ban on rhino and tiger parts, for now
- In an announcement on Oct. 29, the Chinese government said it would permit the controlled use of rhino horn and tiger bone, obtained from farmed rhinos and tigers, for medical purposes.
- China has since walked back the decision, postponing the implementation of the new regulations temporarily.
- Even with the ban restored for now, activists are concerned that the message about the acceptability of animal parts in traditional Chinese medicine lacks clarity, and say they hope the ban will be reinstated permanently.

Four of six black rhinos translocated to Chad are now dead
- Four of the six black rhinos reintroduced to Chad’s Zakouma National Park from South Africa in May are now dead, authorities say.
- Two of the rhinos were found dead recently, following from the deaths of two other rhinos in October.
- Authorities say the rhinos were not poached, and suggest they may have been having trouble adapting to their new habitat. More tests will be needed to determine the cause of death.
- The deaths in Zakouma come just months after 11 black rhinos died within days of being reintroduced into Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park in July.

For Javan rhinos, the last holdout may also be a deadly disease hotspot
- The Critically Endangered Javan rhino survives in just a single population in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park.
- In addition to environmental threats such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, the rhino is threatened by diseases that could be transmitted from both domestic livestock and native wild cattle living in and near the park.
- Zoonotic diseases that pose a potential threat include trypanosomiasis and hemorrhagic septicemia.

Face-to-face with what may be the last of the world’s smallest rhino, the Bornean rhinoceros (insider)
- Jeremy Hance writes about his experience of meeting Tam, one of the last surviving Bornean rhinos, in Malaysia.
- “Nothing can really prepare a person for coming face-to-face with what may be the last of a species,” he writes.
- This is an insider story. To read, please become a member.

‘At capacity’? A Nepali park reckons with its rhinos
- An investigation into a recent increase in natural deaths among the 600 greater one-horned rhinos in Chitwan National Park suggested the park may have reached its carrying capacity for the species.
- The park and its resources are facing pressure both from a growing population of rhinos within the park and from increasing human settlement on its periphery.
- Assessments of the park’s carrying capacity for rhinos vary wildly, ranging from 500 to more than 2,000, leading to differences of opinion about the role overcrowding could play in rhino deaths.

What’s killing Nepal’s rhinos?
- Nepal has had remarkable success at tackling the poaching of its greater one-horned rhinos. But since 2015, it has witnessed a sharp increase in deaths from unknown or natural causes.
- A number of theories have been advanced to explain the deaths: habitat degradation in Chitwan National Park and its surroundings leading to increased conflict over resources; the area reaching its natural carrying capacity for rhinos; a “baby boomer” die-off; or a simple shift in cause of death from death by poaching to death by natural causes.
- The government commissioned a study into the problem, but the report has not been published

China legalizes use of tiger bone and rhino horn for traditional medicine
- China has legalized the “controlled” use of rhino horn and tiger bone for medical use and cultural purposes, the government said in an announcement.
- China banned the trade in tiger bone and rhino horn in 1993, and removed both products from the list of medical ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine’s pharmacopoeia and curriculum. The latest decision reverses that 25-year ban.
- Conservationists worry that legalization of the trade could provide cover for illegal activities, threatening the already imperiled global populations of the endangered animals.

Two black rhinos found dead in Chad after move from South Africa
- Two of the six black rhinos that were flown from South Africa to Zakouma National Park in Chad in May this year have died.
- The two rhinos, a male and a female, were not poached, African Parks said, but the exact cause of death is not yet known.
- The translocation of the six rhinos marked the return of critically endangered black rhinos to Chad after nearly 50 years of the species’ absence.
- The four surviving rhinos are still alive and are being closely monitored, African Parks said.

$25m in funding to help African gov’ts prosecute poachers, traffickers
- The African Wildlife Foundation has pledged $25 million to projects aimed at combating the illegal wildlife trade across the continent over the next four years.
- The Nairobi-based NGO invests in outfitting wildlife rangers, training sniffer dogs to detect illicit shipments, and community-based development.
- AWF president Kaddu Sebunya emphasized the need to invest in homegrown solutions to the crisis when he announced the funding at the Illegal Wildlife Trade conference, held Oct. 11-12 in London.

In a rhino stronghold, indigenous wood-carvers cut through stereotypes
- Local artisans near northeast India’s Kaziranga National Park say their wildlife-inspired woodcraft is an expression of nature-friendly values, and counters stereotypes of tribal people as antagonistic to conservation.
- Small, locally owned workshops face competition from big-city businesses who control prime retail locations and can undercut their prices.
- Carving a fast-growing local wood by hand, sculptors say theirs is a green craft, and should be promoted and supported by the government.

Indonesian government puts off Sumatran rhino IVF program
- Indonesia says a long-awaited program to breed Sumatran rhinos through IVF has been postponed, citing the lack of viable eggs from a female rhino in Malaysia.
- The news becomes the latest setback in the years-long saga between the two countries, with some conservationists in Malaysia blaming the Indonesian government inaction for the dwindling odds of a successful artificial insemination attempt.
- There are only an estimated 40 to 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, scattered on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

The rhino reckoning
- The Sumatran rhino captive-breeding program caught 40 rhinos from 1984 to 1995. To date, the program has produced five calves.
- Some view these figures as evidence of a colossal failure. Others point to the births achieved as proof of the program’s eventual success.
- Momentum has been growing to relaunch efforts to capture wild rhinos. The most significant step yet was the September announcement of a new initiative dubbed the Sumatran Rhino Rescue.

The great rhino U-turn
- As the 20th century drew to a close the Sumatran rhino captive breeding program, launched in 1984, had yet to produce a single calf.
- Home to the last two Sumatran rhinos in the United States, the Cincinnati Zoo made several key discoveries about the species’ reproductive behavior, including the fact that females only ovulate when they have contact with males.
- Andalas, the first Sumatran rhino bred in captivity in more than a century, was born in Cincinnati in 2001. This success, and the subsequent birth of four other calves, has led to a re-evaluation of the program as a whole.
- Now, attention is turned to breeding centers in the rhinos’ original habitat as the future of captive breeding efforts.

A herd of dead rhinos
- An agreement to launch a captive breeding program was brokered in 1984. By 1985, key participants began pulling out, including the Malaysian state of Sabah.
- Despite the setbacks, efforts to capture rhinos quickly got up and running. Keeping the animals healthy proved to be a much greater challenge.
- By 1995, nearly half of the 40 rhinos caught were dead, and none of them had successfully bred in captivity.

1984: the meeting that changed everything for Sumatran rhinos
- A 1984 agreement between zoos, conservationists and government officials marked the formal beginning of an international program that brought 40 Sumatran rhinos into captivity in an attempt to ward off extinction. Within 11 years, the program collapsed.
- The program was long viewed as an epic failure due to high mortality rates and the lack of live births for over a decade; it also paved the way for later breeding successes that just may offer the Sumatran rhino hope for the future.
- As conservationists mull a new plan to capture more rhinos, what lessons do past efforts offer?

An anti-poaching technology for elephants that is always listening
- Summer 2018 marked the successful completion of the first of three test phases for a new anti-poaching technology elephants can wear on a tracking collar.
- Called WIPER by its development team, the device integrates with wildlife tracking collars and listens for the shockwave, or sonic boom, of a high-powered rifle, a common weapon in the industrial killing of elephants and other megafauna.
- WIPER’s design overcomes two key challenges for high-tech wildlife monitoring: power source (by creating a sleep mode) and cost (by putting designs in the public domain).
- WIPER provides real-time alerts and location data when a rifle is fired within 50 meters (50 yards) of the collared animal. WIPER may not protect the animal wearing it, but it helps security personnel close in on poachers, which may deter future poaching.

In protecting the Javan rhino, locals gain a ‘more meaningful life’
- Working in Javan rhino protection programs is no mean feat, according to locals who have dedicated decades of their lives to the endeavor.
- From getting chased by rhinos to meeting face-to-face with armed hunters, their experiences speak to the often grueling reality of on-the-ground conservation work, highlighted by rare encounters with the elusive animals.
- Yet despite the challenges, the workers say they have found worth in their daily duties, and have come to value the rhinos even more as a result.

10 of 11 black rhinos now dead after relocation attempt in Kenya takes tragic turn
- Last month, officials with the Kenya Wildlife Service attempted to move 11 endangered black rhinos from two national parks, Nairobi and Lake Nakuru, to a third, Tsavo East. Nine of them died shortly after arriving in their new home from what an autopsy has shown to be salt poisoning.
- Today, the Kenyan government announced that a tenth rhino has died and that the eleventh — now the sole survivor of the translocation operation — was attacked by lions yesterday and is clinging to life.
- The black rhinoceros is a Critically Endangered species, according to the IUCN Red List. Only about 5,500 individuals are believed to survive in the wild today, 750 of them in Kenya.

Rhino poop gives villagers in India a conservation incentive
- Elrhino company uses the fiber from rhino dung, along with other locally available products, to produce high-end paper products.
- The founders of the company aim to help preserve India’s greater one-horned rhinos by giving villagers a financial incentive to help protect the species.
- The company employs local residents to collect rhino waste, to work in the paper factory, and to produce decorations for its paper products.

And then there were 12: Why don’t we hear about extinction until it’s too late? (commentary)
- Species threatened with extinction often don’t get the public’s attention until they no longer exist.
- The author, zoologist Sam Turvey, argues that more attention to these critical cases is required.
- Ahead of International Save the Vaquita Day on July 7, Turvey points out that the world’s most endangered marine mammal is dangerously close to extinction, and it’s not alone.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Lab-grown embryos raise hope of saving near-extinct rhino
- For the first time ever, scientists have successfully used IVF techniques to combine sperm from the near-extinct northern white rhino with eggs from the more abundant southern white rhino to create viable hybrid embryos.
- The researchers hope to implant the embryos into surrogate female southern white rhinos to produce hybrid baby rhinos that can then ensure that at least some of the northern white rhino DNA is preserved.
- Such IVF techniques can also be used to rescue populations of other endangered rhino species, such as the Sumatran rhino, researchers say.
- But other experts say that while the science is promising, the underlying threat to the survival of all rhino species remains the insatiable demand for the animals’ horns.

In its fight against rhino poachers, India lets the dogs out
- Since 2011, two dog squads have been deployed to help protect the greater one-horned rhinos of India’s Assam state.
- Together, the squads are credited with assisting in more than 46 arrests.
- Both the dogs and their handlers go through intensive training to develop and maintain their skills and the crucial bond that allows them to work as a team.

Geneticists: It’s time to mix the Sumatran rhino subspecies
- The Sumatran rhino populations living in Borneo and Sumatra have been genetically separated for hundreds of thousands of years.
- The species as a whole has no more than 100 living individuals in the wild, and perhaps as few as 30. Another nine are in captivity.
- In a recent study of Sumatran rhinos’ mitochondrial DNA, geneticists argue it’s time to combine the subspecies, despite the potential risks and drawbacks.
- The question is given extra urgency with plans afoot to capture a female rhino in Indonesian Borneo.

Mining, erosion threaten Indian rhino haven
- India’s Kaziranga National Park, home to the world’s largest population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, is under great risk of losing its connectivity with the larger Karbi Anglong landscape due to mining, quarrying and river erosion, a new report by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has warned.
- The NTCA report and directive comes in response to a complaint filed by activist Rohit Choudhury alleging significant environmental degradation and habitat destruction in the foothills of Karbi Anglong, a prime elephant habitat during the flood season.
- Illegal mining and stone crushing aside, the NTCA report highlighted river erosion as a “natural threat” to Kaziranga. But experts caution that erosion is a natural part of Kaziranga’s flood-plain ecology, and isn’t necessarily bad.

Guardians of India’s rhinos find it takes a village to fight poachers
- Adjacent to an international border and with roads, a rail line and tea plantations within its boundaries, India’s Jaldapara National Park — home to more than 200 rhinos — is particularly vulnerable to poaching.
- The forest department works closely with local residents to protect rhinos, and 40 percent of tourist revenues are earmarked to support community projects.
- Forest department strategies range from rehabilitation of confessed poachers to joint exercises with the police and border patrol.

In unsuspecting Indian villages, the international rhino horn trade takes a toll
- The vast majority of villagers around India’s Jaldapara National Park live in harmony with the area’s wildlife, but a small minority get involved in rhino poaching.
- Experts and former poachers say villagers are recruited by organized poaching syndicates. Locals serve as guides and lookouts, while syndicates arrange for the transport and sale of rhino horns.
- From West Bengal, rhino horns are taken to India’s northeastern states and then across the border to Myanmar and eventually to China.

Can India’s ‘People’s Forest’ also serve as a haven for rhinos?
- Jadav Payeng, India’s “Forest Man,” transformed a barren island in Assam state into a 550-hectare (1,360-acre) forest that hosts rare species including rhinos, tigers and elephants.
- Some conservationists fear that the animals living on the island are vulnerable to poaching, since the forest lacks formal protected status and therefore is not allotted official forest guards.
- Payeng, however, resists seeking formal protected status for the forest, fearing it would limit local peoples’ access to the forest’s resources.

Black rhinos return to Zakouma National Park in Chad
- The NGO African Parks and its partners in South Africa and Chad reintroduced six black rhinos to Zakouma National Park on May 4.
- Chad’s oldest national park had not had rhinos since the early 1970s, when they were wiped out by hunting.
- After a brief acclimation period in transitional bomas, or enclosures, the rhinos will be released into a protected sanctuary in the park.
- Around 5,000 black rhinos remain on the African continent, and poaching for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine, continues to be a threat to their survival as a species.

Indonesia cites twisted bowel in death of Javan rhino
- Last month, rangers in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park found an adult male rhino dead on a beach.
- A necropsy determined the rhino’s death was due to complications from a twisted bowel, putting to rest fears of poaching or contagion.
- Despite the death, the Javan rhino population has shown stable growth with the birth of two calves earlier this year, putting the tally at minimum 68 individuals.

There is still a chance to save the Sumatran rhino (commentary)
- In 2017, rhino experts from around the world and government officials reached a consensus that saving the Sumatran rhino requires the capture and consolidation of remaining wild populations in intensively managed captive breeding facilities.
- A female rhino has been identified for immediate capture in Indonesian Borneo.
- In this commentary, WWF Wildlife Practice Leader Margaret Kinnaird and IUCN Species Survival Commission Chair Jon Paul Rodriguez say that local and international conservation groups are ready to support the Indonesian government’s efforts to save the Sumatran rhino through captive breeding and release into safe sites.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Sending a message about rhino conservation in Nepal
- Since 2011, Nepal has recorded five 365-day periods without any rhinos poached, despite its proximity to the key rhino-horn markets of Vietnam and China.
- Experts say strategic communications have been an important tool in this conservation success.
- The communications strategies used involve not just getting out the word about conservation successes through new and old media, but also seeking ideas and feedback from local communities.

Signoff on rhino sperm transfer between Indonesia, Malaysia expected mid-May: Official
- Indonesia has sent a memorandum of understanding to the Malaysian government regarding the transfer of sperm for use in a captive-breeding attempt, an official confirmed to Mongabay on April 26.
- Hoping the sperm can be used to fertilize Malaysia’s last remaining female Sumatran rhino, conservationists have been awaiting permission for the transfer for years.
- Herry Subagiadi, secretary to the conservation director at Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, says he expects Malaysia to sign the agreement in mid-May.
- Sumatran rhinos are critically endangered, with just nine living in captivity in Indonesia and Malaysia, and as few as 30 surviving in the wild.

Two newborn Javan rhinos spotted on camera in Indonesian park
- Officials from Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park announced Thursday that two new Javan rhino calves were born this year.
- An adult male, estimated to be around 30 years old, was found dead in the park this week. Officials have found no indication the death was due to poaching, poison or acute infection.
- Ujung Kulon is the sole remaining habitat of the species. With two births and one death, the official population estimate now stands at 68.

Conservationist known as a caretaker for Kenya’s orphaned elephants dies at 83
- Conservationist Daphne Sheldrick died of breast cancer on April 12, according to the conservation organization she founded.
- Born in Kenya, she spent her life working to care for orphaned elephants in Kenya and fighting to save the species through her advocacy.
- She started the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, named for her husband, in 1977.
- The organization runs an orphan elephant project, as well as de-snaring and veterinary care teams.

Kaziranga’s rhino census finds the population is growing, but more slowly than expected
- Kaziranga National Park in India’s Assam state is home to the majority of the world’s greater one-horned rhinos.
- A census completed in March counted 2,413 rhinos, an increase of 12 individuals since 2015.
- Officials believe rhinos were undercounted, likely due to poor visibility. Other observers suggest changes should be made to survey methodology.
- If the numbers are accurate, it could suggest the park has reached its carrying capacity. However, a large number of young rhinos were counted, indicating that the population remains healthy and breeding.

The world’s last male northern white rhino has died
- Sudan, a 45-year-old rhino believed to be the world’s last surviving male northern white rhino, died at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on March 19.
- Sudan had been battling ill health over the past few months, and after his condition worsened considerably in the last 24 hours, veterinarians decided to euthanize him.
- Sudan lived at Ol Pejeta with the only other northern white rhinos left on Earth — his daughter, Najin, and her daughter, Fatu — under 24-hour armed surveillance.
- The survival of the species now hinges on costly and never-before-attempted in vitro fertilization using eggs from the remaining females, stored sperm samples, and southern white rhino females as surrogates.

Save the Sumatran rhino ‘because we can’ (commentary)
- Mongabay sent contributing editor Jeremy Hance to Indonesia in 2017 to visit the last remaining Sumatran rhinos in the forests and protected sanctuaries where captive breeding is having some limited success.
- Hance argues today in an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald that we should save the Sumatran rhino, not only because losing biodiversity is bad for the health of humanity’s environment, but also “because we can.”
- To keep these ‘lovably weird’ rhinos from extinction, the Indonesian government must act, he argues, because even if there’s 100 left, that size population is unlikely to be viable in the long term.

Last of its kind: sole surviving male northern white rhino is gravely ill
- The planet’s last male northern white rhino is gravely ill.
- Sudan, as the rhino is named, has developed a serious infection.
- Only three northern white rhinos remain, including two females who are Sudan’s offspring.
- The northern white rhinos are protected from poachers by armed guards.

Javan rhino population holds steady amid ever-present peril
- The latest survey from the Indonesian government shows the population of the Javan rhino, one of the world’s most endangered large mammals, holding steady in its last remaining habitat.
- While the findings indicate a healthy and breeding rhino population, wildlife experts warn of the dangers looming over the animal’s existence, including human encroachment into its habitat and the ever-present threat of a volcanic eruption and tsunami.
- The Javan rhino is one of the last three Asian rhino species — alongside the Sumatran and Indian rhinos — all of which have been pushed to the brink of extinction.

‘Photo Ark’ a quest to document global biodiversity: Q&A with photographer Joel Sartore and director Chun-Wei Yi
- The film “RARE: Creatures of the Photo Ark” follows National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore as he travels the world snapping pictures of thousands of different animal species.
- In the last 12 years, Sartore has photographed nearly 8,000 species.
- “RARE: Creatures of the Photo Ark” was named Best Conservation Film at the New York WILD Film Festival.

Audio: The cutting-edge technologies allowing us to monitor ecosystems like never before
- On today’s episode, we discuss the cutting-edge remote sensing technologies used to monitor ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs. We also listen to a few ecoacoustic recordings that are used to analyze species richness in tropical forests.
- Our first guest today is Greg Asner, who leads the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) at Stanford University’s Carnegie Institution for Science. Asner invented a technique he calls “airborne laser-guided imaging spectroscopy” that utilizes imaging spectrometers mounted on the Carnegie Airborne Observatory airplane to produce highly detailed data on large and complex ecosystems like tropical forests.
- Our second guest is Mitch Aide, the principal investigator at the University of Puerto Rico’s Tropical Community Ecology Lab. In this Field Notes segment, Aide will play us a few of the audio recordings he’s uploaded to Arbimon as part of his recent research and will explain how these recordings are used to examine species richness in tropical forests.

Robbery or retribution? Police investigate death of prominent conservationist in Kenya
- Esmond Bradley Martin, a 76-year-old American, was found stabbed to death in the home he shared with his wife in a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday.
- Martin had been working in Africa and around the world since the 1970s to stop the slaughter of rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks.
- Colleagues credit Martin with increasing the conservation community’s understanding of the trade of wildlife parts through his often-undercover investigations.

Rhino poaching in South Africa dipped slightly last year, but ‘crisis continues unabated,’ conservationists say
- South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa announced in a press briefing today that 1,028 rhinos were illegally killed in the country in 2017.
- In Kruger National Park, which has typically been the epicenter of rhino poaching in South Africa, 504 illegal killings were recorded last year, Molewa reported. That’s a 24 percent reduction over 2016 — but these gains were offset by poaching in other regions, particularly KwaZulu Natal province.
- While the rhino poaching rate in South Africa has slowly decreased every year since peaking in 2014 with 1,215 animals lost, conservationists were not encouraged by the slightly lower number of rhinos killed last year.

Indonesia hints rhino sperm transfer to Malaysia may finally happen this year
- Indonesia has signaled it may send a much-needed sample of Sumatran rhino sperm to Malaysia for use in a captive-breeding program seen as the last means of saving the critically endangered species.
- If it goes to plan, the program would boost the genetic diversity of the species, of which only 30 to 100 individuals are believed to remain in the wild.
- The Sumatran rhino population has been decimated by poaching and habitat loss, but the biggest threat facing the species today is the small and fragmented nature of their populations, with an increased risk of inbreeding.

Thai police bust leading wildlife trafficker
- Thai police have arrested Boonchai Bach, the alleged kingpin behind one of the world’s biggest and most notorious wildlife trafficking syndicates.
- Bach and his family operation have been the target of authorities and anti-trafficking groups for more than a decade for moving vast quantities of rhino horns and elephant tusks to markets in China, Vietnam and Laos, via their hub in Thailand.
- One of the family’s main customers remains at large, however. Vixay Keosavang, said to be the most prominent wildlife dealer in Southeast Asia, is beyond the reach of Thai authorities, in Laos.

Indonesian ex-soldier among three jailed for illegal trade in Sumatran rhino, tiger parts
- A court in Indonesia has jailed three men for the illegal trade in endangered Sumatran rhino and tiger parts.
- An ex-Army captain and a middleman were sentenced to two years for trying to trade in a rhino horn, while a similar sentence was handed down to a man convicted of trapping and killing a tiger and trying to sell it
- While both the Sumatran rhino and Sumatran tiger are deemed critically endangered, or just a step away from being extinct in the wild, conservationists say enforcement of local laws meant to protect them remains lax.

Rhino DNA database helps officials nab poachers and traffickers
- A DNA-based system is helping authorities prosecute and convict poachers and rhino horn traffickers in Africa.
- RhODIS, as the system is called, is built on a foundational database with genetic information from nearly 4,000 individual rhinos.
- By comparing the frequencies of alleles in confiscated horn and horn products with those in tissue from a poached animal, investigators can then come up with a probable match for where that horn came from.
- So far, RhODIS has been instrumental in nine convictions in East and Southern Africa.

Rhino horn seizure taps into Southeast Asian trafficking ring
- Officials confiscated 12.5 kilograms (27.6 pounds) of South African rhino horn on Dec. 12.
- The seizure led to the arrest of a member of the Bach family, which is suspected of running a wildlife trafficking syndicate from Thailand.
- The NGO Elephant Action League provided Thai authorities with information that led to the arrest, as well as that of another wildlife trafficking ‘kingpin’ in December.

Roads, dams and railways: Ten infrastructure stories from Southeast Asia in 2017
- Southeast Asia is one of the epicenters of a global “tsunami” of infrastructure development.
- As the countries in the region work to elevate their economic standing, concerns from scientists and NGOs highlight the potential pitfalls in the form of environmental degradation and destruction that roads, dams and other infrastructure can bring in tow.
- Mongabay had reporters covering the region in 2017. Here are 10 of their stories.

Glimmer of hope as Malaysia’s last female Sumatran rhino shows signs of recovery
- The worst appears to be over for Iman, Malaysia’s last female Sumatran rhino, after she suffered massive bleeding from a ruptured tumor in her uterus earlier this month.
- Veterinarians and rhino experts are hopeful but cautious about Iman’s recovery prospects, and continue to provide around-the-clock care.
- The rhino is Malaysia’s last hope for saving the nearly extinct species, which is thought to number as few as 30 individuals in the world.

Malaysia’s last female Sumatran rhino falls ill
- Malaysia’s last female Sumatran rhino, which was captured from the wild for a captive-breeding program to save the species, has fallen ill from a ruptured tumor in her uterus.
- Veterinarians have been unable to provide the necessary medical treatment because of the rhino’s behavior and adverse conditions on the ground.
- The captive-breeding program was dashed by the death of the only other female Sumatran rhino in Malaysia earlier this year and the refusal of the Indonesian government to share a frozen sperm sample for artificial insemination.

DNA analysis shows Sumatran rhinos peaked during last Ice Age, never recovered
- Genome analysis shows that the Sumatran rhino has been on the path toward extinction for almost 12,000 years, as the end of the last Ice Age cut off much of its former territory, a new report says.
- Habitat loss from deforestation and overhunting further devastated the species’ population, and it has never recovered.
- Scientists continue to make the case for captive breeding as the best effort to boost the rhino population and stave off extinction.

Petition for Indonesian government to save Sumatran rhino garners global support
- More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to do more to save the critically endangered Sumatran rhino from extinction.
- The petition was launched several days after a Mongabay series looked into the current state of the species, which may number as few as 30 individuals in the wild.
- The series also identified the Indonesian government as hampering much-needed efforts to stave off the disappearance of the Sumatran rhino from poaching and habitat loss.

Biofuel project near India’s rhino heartland sparks protests
- India’s state-owned Numaligarh Refinery Limited and Finnish firm Chempolis Oy plan to build a bioethanol refinery near Kaziranga National Park in India’s Assam State.
- The project is touted as green and sustainable, but faces opposition from local activists who fear it will cause pollution, increase human-wildlife conflict, and negatively impact the habitat of elephants, rhinos and other wildlife.
- Activists also cite concerns about the project’s environmental impact assessment process, and its proposed location in an officially designated “no-development zone.”

Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’
- Celebrated conservationist and Mongabay advisor Jane Goodall spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler for the podcast just before departing for her latest speaking tour (she travels 300 days a year raising conservation awareness). Here we supply the full transcript.
- This wide-ranging conversation begins with reaction to the science community’s recent acceptance of her six decade contention that animals are individuals with personalities, and moves on to discuss trends in conservation, and she then provides an update on the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI)’s global projects.
- She also challenges trophy hunting as an effective tool for funding conservation (“It’s rubbish,” she says), shares her positive view of China’s quickly growing environmental movement, talks about the key role of technology in conservation, and discusses a range of good news, which she states is always so important to share.
- Amazingly, Dr. Goodall reports that JGI’s youth program Roots & Shoots now has perhaps as many as 150,000 chapters worldwide, making it probably the largest conservation movement in the world, with many millions having been part of the program. An effort is now underway to document them all.

A tranquilizer shortage is holding back rhino management plans in India
- Conservationists rely on a semi-synthetic opioid called Etorphine HCl to tranquilize rhinos for veterinary care, translocation and other critical interventions.
- Due to export regulations in South Africa, and red tape at home, Indian states face a critical shortage of the drug.
- The lack of Etorphine is already holding up translocation plans in several protected areas, and preventing veterinarians from caring for injured animals.

The fate of the Sumatran rhino is in the Indonesian government’s hands
- As the Sumatran rhino edges closer to extinction, aggressive interventions have stalled. Even ongoing efforts like ranger protection have been undercut by lack of government support.
- As of May, conservation groups are united in their calls to ramp up captive-breeding efforts in Indonesia, but the government has not yet responded.
- Frustrated conservationists cite bureaucracy, risk aversion, opaque and arbitrary decisions, and territorial squabbling as barriers to progress — but remain hopeful the government will act in time.

Is anyone going to save the Sumatran rhino?
- As the Sumatran rhino’s population dwindled, conservationists were locked in a debate about whether resources should be directed toward captive breeding or protecting wild populations.
- With captive breeding efforts showing success, and wild populations becoming non-viable, the pendulum has swung in favor of captive breeding.
- Experts agree that action is needed now more than ever, but any steps rely on support from the Indonesian government.

Where, oh where, are the rhinos of Bukit Barisan Selatan?
- Some claim a small but viable population of about a dozen rhinos persists deep within the forests of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park on Sumatra’s southwestern coast.
- Camera traps haven’t captured a single rhino there since 2014, spurring doubts there are any rhinos remaining at all.
- The disputed numbers lead to questions about what should happen to any rhinos that might remain in the park — and to the rangers assigned to protect them.

Top 10 most widely traded animals in the Golden Triangle identified in new report
- Recent surveys by WWF and TRAFFIC have identified 10 of the most widely trafficked animals in the Golden Triangle.
- These top 10 animals are: the tiger, elephant, pangolin, bear, rhinoceros, serow, helmeted hornbill, gaur, leopard, and turtles.
- The wildlife markets in the Golden Triangle cater mostly to tourists from China and Vietnam, the report noted.

Worst-case scenario: There could be only 30 wild Sumatran rhinos left
- In 1986, scientists estimated there could be as many as 800 Sumatran rhinos left. That fell to 400 in 1996, then 275 in 2008.
- Today the official estimate is 100 rhinos, but almost all experts believe that figure is overly optimistic.
- Adding up the minimum estimate for each of the four known wild populations yields a total of just 30 wild Sumatran rhinos left on earth, plus another nine in captivity.

Three rhinos killed in 48 hours in India’s Kaziranga National Park
- An adult female rhino was killed by poachers Nov. 2, and a female and her calf Nov. 4, in Kaziranga National Park.
- Kaziranga, which is home to the world’s largest population of greater one-horned rhinoceros, had previously only lost two rhinos to poachers in 2017.
- State officials have vowed to provide park guards with more sophisticated arms, while park authorities cite the need to more surveillance inside the park’s difficult terrain.

Rhino poacher sentenced to 18 years in prison
- A court in Malawi has convicted and sentenced a rhino poacher to 18 years in prison for killing an adult female black rhinoceros.
- Two of his accomplices were also handed sentences of ten and eight years each.
- The recent 18-year sentence might serve as a deterrent to would-be poachers, some experts say.

Black rhinos in Tanzania now monitored via sensors implanted directly in their horns
- In a first for the species, several black rhinos in Tanzania’s Mkomazi National Park have had small, networked sensors embedded directly in their horns in order to allow park rangers to monitor the animals much more closely than in the past.
- The sensors make use of LoRaWAN technology (which stands for “Long Range Wide Area Network”), designed to allow low-powered devices, like sensors in rhino horns, to communicate with Internet-connected devices, like computers in a ranger station, over long-range wireless networks.
- LoRaWAN is one of several technologies currently being put to use for real-time monitoring of wildlife. The network in Tanzania’s Mkomazi National Park, where the sensors were recently deployed, covers the entire rhino sanctuary in the park.

When a rhino calls in the forest, this guy hears it: Q&A with a Javan rhino researcher
- Javan rhinos are so cryptic and elusive that they are difficult to study, despite the entire species being confined to a single site.
- Camera traps are giving researchers new insights into the species’ behaviors and environmental needs.
- Steve Wilson, a doctoral student working on a dissertation about Javan rhinos, explains some of these new findings — and how novel research methods might help guide conservation strategies.

A rhino called hope
- Only 50-100 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain. Seven live at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia.
- One of the sanctuary’s residents, Harapan, was transferred from the Cincinnati Zoo two years ago.
- Harapan’s caretakers say he is in good health, is settling into the facility and will soon be introduced to one the center’s female rhinos in hopes of siring offspring.

Documenting Africa’s poaching epidemic: Q&A with the director of ‘The Last Animals’
- A deadly combination of consumer demand, transnational criminal syndicates and local poverty and conflict drives the illicit trade in ivory and rhino horn.
- War photographer turned filmmaker Kate Brooks traveled through four continents to document the wildlife trade for her film “The Last Animals.”
- The film is a finalist for the Special Jury award at the 2017 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in Jackson, Wyoming.

Can the Javan rhino be saved before disaster strikes?
- The Javan rhinoceros has been reduced to a single population of around 60 individuals in an area prone to natural disasters.
- Although the entire species now lives in a single national park, Javan rhinos are difficult to study and researchers are still working to understand the behavior of both individual animals and the population as a whole
- Work to expand the existing habitat is underway, but experts agree establishing a second population is critical for the species’ survival.

Traffickers find new ways to smuggle rhino horn out of Africa
- Criminal networks of Chinese origin operating in southern Africa have started processing rhino horn into jewelry and other trinkets before smuggling it out of the continent, reports wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic.
- A shift from smuggling whole horns to jewelry complicates law enforcement efforts, and suggests there is a growing demand for luxury items made from rhino horn.
- New tactics and trade routes underscore how difficult it is for authorities to combat global trafficking networks.

Audio: Legendary musician Bruce Cockburn on music, activism, and hope
- Music has a unique ability to inspire awareness and action about important issues — and we’re excited to welcome a living legend onto the program to discuss that very topic.
- Bruce Cockburn, well known for his outspoken support of environmental and humanitarian causes, appears on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Our second guest is Amanda Lollar, founder and president of Bat World Sanctuary, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Texas.
- All that plus the top news!

Javan rhinos face human incursions into their last remaining habitat
- Only around 60 Javan rhinoceroses are believed to remain, all of them in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park.
- Authorities have caught dozens of people hunting, gathering forest products and planting crops in the park, including the recent arrest of 13 people in core rhino habitat.
- Despite the challenges, the population is believed to be stable and calves continue to be born.

Audio: Technologies that boost conservation efforts right now and in the future
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at the role technology is playing — and might play in the future — in conservation efforts.
- Our first guest is Topher White, the founder of Rainforest Connection, a nonprofit based in San Francisco that has deployed upcycled cell phones in tropical forests around the world to provide real-time monitoring of forests and wildlife.
- Our second guest is Matthew Putman, an applied physicist with a keen interest in conservation. Putman is CEO of Nanotronics, a company headquartered in Brooklyn, NY that makes automated industrial microscopes used by manufacturers of advanced technologies like semiconductors, microchips, hard drives, LEDs, and aerospace hardware.

India and Nepal team up to rescue flooded rhinos
- At least 15 greater one-horned rhinoceroses have been swept across the Indo-Nepal border by this year’s monsoon floods.
- Officials from both countries have worked together to find and rescue the flood-swept animals.
- The floods pose great dangers for rhinos, but highlight the progress made by cross-border conservation initiatives between India, Nepal and Bhutan.

Rhino horn confiscated, three alleged traffickers arrested in Sumatra
- Indonesian authorities arrested three alleged wildlife traffickers and seized a rhino horn in Medan, North Sumatra on Aug. 13.
- Officials believe the horn comes from a Sumatran rhino, one of the world’s rarest and most endangered mammal species.
- The arrest followed a June 12 raid in a neighboring province that also resulted in the confiscation of a Sumatran rhino horn. Authorities have not yet determined whether there is a connection between the two incidents.

Rhino horn on the auction block in South Africa
- The trade in rhino horn has only recently become legal in South Africa again, after an April 2017 decision reversed a 2009 moratorium.
- Since the ban went into effect, rhino deaths at the hands of poachers in South Africa are nearly 10 times what they were, leading some private rhino breeders to argue that international trade should be legalized to meet the demand for horn sustainably.
- Conservation groups are concerned that a legal trade would neither satisfy the market’s demand for rhino horn nor stem poaching.

Road projects threaten Sumatra’s last great rainforests
- Local officials currently have plans to build roads in Mount Leuser, Bukit Barisan Selatan and Kerinci Seblat National Parks in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.
- Conservationists fear these plans could accelerate habitat loss and degradation in this highly biodiverse forest complex, which is home to many endangered species.
- Proponents of road development cite the need for increased economic opportunities for local people and evacuation routes in case of natural disasters.

In Nepal, the rhino evokes national pride
- Nepal’s greater one-horned rhinos were historically revered for their spiritual potency as well as for their value as thrilling quarry for sport hunting.
- The rise of wildlife tourism in the 1960s and 70s brought awareness of the economic value of live, free-roaming rhinos — helping to increase support for conservation.
- As rhino numbers soar, leading to increased human-wildlife conflict, conservationists are working to ensure rhinos don’t become victims of their own success.

Sumatran rhino horn, pangolin parts seized in Aceh wildlife trafficking bust
- Police in Aceh detained a male villager who had allegedly been trading wildlife parts for about a year.
- Authorities confiscated a Sumatran rhino horn, a deer head and bags filled with pangolin tongues and scales.
- The alleged trafficker faces five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $7,500.

Working with communities to fight fires in Way Kambas National Park
- Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra supports populations of Critically Endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers and elephants, along with hundreds of other species.
- In 1997, forest fires hit 70 percent of the park, killing many animals and hampering regeneration in previously logged areas.
- Local authorities and conservation groups are now working with residents to prevent and fight fires, with notable success.

Flood hits India’s Kaziranga National Park, killing four rhinos
- Annual monsoon floods are a natural part of Kaziranga National Park’s ecosystem but pose multiple threats to animals, including the risk of drowning or getting poached or hit by cars while fleeing rising water.
- According to officials, 81 animals have been killed in this year’s flood, including four rhinos. Another 78 animals have been stranded or injured.
- Mitigation measures include increased monitoring by rangers, police and drones; closely tracking the speed of vehicles through the park; and the construction of artificial highlands.
- Authorities are also considering a controversial proposal to build a road-cum-embankment to prevent floodwaters from inundating the park.

Behind rising rhino numbers in Nepal, a complex human story
- The fortunes of the indigenous Tharu people and Nepal’s rhinos have been linked for centuries.
- The establishment of Chitwan National Park in 1973 deepened the marginalization the Tharu, evicting thousands from their land and depriving them of access to the forest.
- Since the 1990s, conservation groups have been working to develop a community-based conservation model that includes the Tharu.
- Other ethnic groups have long remained outside the community conservation model, and have in some cases turned to poaching for income.

Investigation finds ‘thriving’ rhino horn trade in Asia
- Over 11 months, EAL investigators posed as potential buyers and identified 55 ‘persons of interest’ involved in the trade of rhino horn.
- The group mapped out the routes by which rhino horn – valued at tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram – arrives in China.
- Recorded conversations during the investigation allude to the fact that dealers and traders understand that rhinos face the threat of extinction.

Nepal’s rhino numbers rise, thanks to national and local commitment
- Nepal’s population of greater one-horned rhinos has fluctuated wildly over the past century.
- Widespread in the early 1900s, rhinos were reduced to a few pockets by the 1950s and around 100 individuals in the 1970s.
- Conservation efforts boosted the population by the 1990s, but the 1996-2006 Maoist insurgency took a devastating toll.
- Numbers are now rising again, a trend attributed to commitment at both the grassroots and the highest levels of government.

On poaching in South Africa, education “has saved more wildlife than any guard with a gun”
- Kruger National Park in South Africa is one of the largest and best-known parks for seeing large animals in the world.
- However, as many as three rhinos a day are poached for their horns in and around Kruger despite massive anti-poaching efforts.
- Anti-poaching advocates near Kruger say hope lies in basic education and jobs in tourism, which they aim to provide.

Audio: DJ remixes the sounds of birds, lemurs, and more to inspire conservation
- Our first guest is Ben Mirin, aka DJ Ecotone, an explorer, wildlife DJ, educator, and television presenter who creates music from the sounds of nature to help inspire conservation efforts.
- In this very special Field Notes segment, Mirin discusses his craft and some of the challenges of capturing wildlife sounds in the field — including why it can be so difficult to record dolphins when all they want to do is take a bow ride on your boat.
- We also speak with Cleve Hicks, author of a children’s book called A Rhino to the Rescue: A Tale of Conservation and Adventure, not only to express his love of nature but to help raise awareness of the poaching crisis decimating Africa’s rhino population.
- All that plus the top news on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast!

India’s Assam state moves to fast track trials for wildlife crime
- Poachers in Assam state target endangered and vulnerable species including rhinos, tigers and leopards.
- Even when poachers are caught, authorities have often struggled to secure convictions.
- Assam is working to reverse this trend with the establishment of fast-track courts for wildlife crime, as well as training programs for police and forest officials.
- Six convictions have been secured in wildlife cases this year, compared to just one in all of 2016.

The women who live alongside rhinos in India
- India’s rising population of greater one-horned rhinos brings residents of villages bordering protected areas into proximity with the animals.
- Women — who are generally responsible for collecting fodder, fuelwood and other forest products — are particularly likely to have encounters with rhinos.
- In Manas and Orang national parks, where authorities allow local women access to the parks’ buffer zones, such sightings are a source of joy and pride.
- In Kaziranga, where access has been cut off, women express resentment that their fortunes have so far not risen in tandem with the rhinos’.

Footprints in the forest: The future of the Sumatran rhino
- Fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) remain in the wild, a number many biologists say is too low to ensure the survival of the species.
- Several organizations have begun to build momentum toward a single program that pools resources and know-how in Malaysia and Indonesia, the last places in Southeast Asia where captive and wild rhinos still live.
- Advocates for intensive efforts to breed animals in captivity fear that an emphasis on the protection of the remaining wild animals may divert attention and funding away from such projects.
- They worry that if they don’t act now, the Sumatran rhino may pass a point of no return from which it cannot recover.

When it comes to rhino conservation, Asia and Africa can learn a lot from each other
- Despite its proximity to Asian markets for trafficked rhino horn, Nepal has lost only four rhinos to poaching since 2011.
- Experts credit this success to a combination of top-down enforcement and efforts to involve the community in conservation.
- Protected areas in Africa that have collaborated with area residents have shown promising results, suggesting lessons from Nepal can be successfully applied elsewhere.
- In turn, conservationists say Nepal can benefit from African countries’ expertise in promoting wildlife tourism, and alternate models of benefit sharing.

Wildlife ecologist killed in Rwandan national park by recently translocated rhino
- “It is with utmost regret that I inform you that Krisztián Gyöngyi was killed this morning by a rhinoceros in Akagera National Park in Rwanda while out tracking animals in the park,” Peter Fearnhead, CEO of the non-profit conservation organization African Parks, announced in a statement.
- According to Fearnhead, Gyöngyi was a rhino specialist who had more than five years of experience monitoring and conserving rhinos in Majete Wildlife Reserve and Liwonde National Park, both in Malawi.
- In a joint initiative of the Rwandan government and African Parks, which employs more than 600 rangers and manages 10 national parks and protected areas in seven countries, 18 Eastern black rhinos were airlifted from South Africa to Akagera National Park.

If we wish to save the Javan rhinoceros, we must work to know it (commentary)
- The Javan rhino survives in a single population of roughly 60 individuals in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park.
- Despite successful efforts to protect the park’s rhinos from poachers, the species remains at risk due to multiple threats including lack of genetic diversity, disease and natural disasters.
- Designing effective conservation strategies requires filling crucial gaps in knowledge about the population’s size, status and behavior.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Bringing rhinos back to India’s parks
- Launched in 2005, the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 aimed to boost the population of rhinos in Assam State and expand the species’ range within the state from three protected areas to seven.
- Manas National Park was the first to receive translocated rhinos. The animals appeared to adapt well to their new home, but poachers repeatedly struck the park.
- The program then turned to Burachapori Wildlife Sanctuary, but the rhinos moved there grew sick and died.
- Conservationists still believe the overarching goal of boosting the state’s rhino population to 3,000 by 2020 is achievable.

‘Crunch time for biodiversity’: Farming, hunting push thousands of species toward extinction
- Eighty percent of threatened animals are losing ground – literally, in the form of habitat loss – to agriculture.
- Up to 50 percent of threatened birds and mammals face extinction at the hands of hunters.
- In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists explores solutions to avoid destroying the habitats of these animals, such as increasing yields in the developed world and minimizing fertilizer use.

One of Malaysia’s last rhinos euthanized to ‘end her suffering’
- Puntung was one of three Sumatran rhinos known to survive in Malaysia, and one of fewer than 100 representatives of this Critically Endangered species.
- Her health first raised concern in March, when she was found to suffer from an abscess in her jaw.
- Dental surgery was successfully performed in April, but she was then found to have squamous cell cancer.
- Veterinarians determined the disease was fatal and that treatment would only prolong her suffering. Puntung was euthanized just after dawn on Sunday, June 4.

New York detective work saves rhinos in South Africa (commentary)
- The slaughter of rhinos is due to demand for the very appendage that distinguishes a rhino from other creatures – its horn. Rhino horn has long been used in Asian traditional medicine, but the recent surge in the illegal horn market in countries like Vietnam and China has sent the price of horn skyrocketing to upwards of $65,000 (USD) per kilogram – more than the price of gold.
- Southeast Asia isn’t the only market for smuggled rhino horns. In New York City, wildlife law enforcement officers and port authority agents are finding rhino horn in shipping containers and commercial luggage destined for markets in the United States and beyond.
- One of the major anti-poaching operations funded by the Wild Tomorrow Fund with money from court-ordered donations by sellers of illegal ivory busted in New York City is the dehorning of a black rhino population at Phinda Private Game Reserve.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Slight bumps in protected areas could be a boon for biodiversity
- Increasing protected areas by 5 percent in strategic locations could boost biodiversity protection by a factor of three.
- The study examined global protected areas and evaluated how well they safeguard species, functional and evolutionary biodiversity.
- More than a quarter of species live mostly outside protected areas.
- The new strategy from the research leverages the functional and evolutionary biodiversity found in certain spots and could help conservation planners pinpoint areas for protection that maximize all three types of biodiversity.

Bowling for Rhinos: a grassroots project with global reach
- Since the original event in 1987, Bowling for Rhinos — a project run completely by volunteers — has raised more than $6 million to support rhino conservation efforts around the world.
- Funds have supported ranger units that protect the Asian rhino species, as well as conservation programs for black and white rhinos.
- Fundraisers, which happen across the United States, go beyond just bowling — some groups opt to host events like Painting for Rhinos or Winos for Rhinos.
- Some participants and supporters point to Bowling for Rhinos as an antidote to feelings of hopelessness in the face of national and global environmental problems.

Nepal burns more than 4,000 confiscated wildlife parts
- These illegally trafficked items were burned in Chitwan National Park in front of nearly 300 people.
- The wildlife parts, which were part of the burn, have been collected over the last 20 years.
- Officials hope that this burning will act as a deterrent to wildlife traffickers.

Skewed sex ratio spells danger for rhinos in India’s Gorumara National Park
- Gorumara National Park, in India’s West Bengal State, is home to a small but steadily growing population of greater one-horned rhinoceroses, currently numbering 51 individuals.
- Despite its overall growth, the sex ratio of the park’s rhino population is severely imbalanced, with more reproductive-aged males than females.
- Ideally, there should be more females than males. A male-heavy population threatens the long-term reproductive and genetic viability of the population, as well as leading to increased conflict over mates.
- Until this spring, Gorumara had been relatively free of poaching since the 1990s. However, two dead rhinos were found in April, and another suspected poaching incident was reported May 18.

With poaching curtailed, a new menace to Nepal’s wildlife
- Since 2011, with poaching largely under control in the country, conservationists in Nepal have been paying increasing attention to the risks of diseases spreading to wildlife from domesticated animals.
- Domesticated animals near Chitwan National Park form a reservoir of pathogens that could cross to wildlife. Veterinarians have already identified tuberculosis in a dead rhino and a suspected case of canine distemper in a leopard.
- The country currently lacks facilities to fully analyze and respond to the threat of diseases, but local and international groups are working to rapidly increase capacity.

Fighting a plant to save rhinos in Nepal
- Mikania micrantha, a plant native to the Americas, has been present in Chitwan National Park since the 1990s. As of 2010, it was present in 20 percent of the park, becoming a threat to wildlife and local people’s livelihoods.
- The plant is particularly prevalent in habitats like wetlands, grasslands and riverine forests, which are also favored habitats for the more than 600 one-horned rhinos living in the park.
- Mikania chokes out native fodder species, pushing rhinos and other grazers out of the safety of the park and increasing human-wildlife conflict, researchers have found.
- Mikania is extremely difficult to eradicate since plants produce up to 40,000 seeds per year and can re-root from even small stems. Efforts are underway to improve removal strategies and engage local communities in the work.

Rwanda welcomes 20 black rhinos to Akagera National Park
- The 20 black rhinos are of the eastern subspecies (Diceros bicornis michaeli).
- African Parks, the NGO that manages Akagera National Park in cooperation with the government of Rwanda, says that it has rhino trackers, canine patrols and a helicopter to protect the rhinos from poaching.
- Fewer than 5,000 black rhinos exist in Africa. Their numbers have been decimated by poaching for their horns, which fetch high prices for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
- Officials hope that the new rhino population will boost Akagera National Park’s visibility as a ecotourism destination.

Despite numerous challenges, rhinos are thriving in India’s Jaldapara National Park
- Jaldapara National Park in the northern fringe of West Bengal hosts more than 200 one-horned rhinos.
- Growing demand for rhino horn means poaching is a rising threat, especially when anti-poaching measures in neighboring Assam State prompt poaching networks to seek new targets.
- In addition to extensive anti-poaching patrols, the park’s management is relying on cooperation with residents of nearby villages to protect the park’s wildlife.
- The park now shares 40 percent of ecotourism revenue with community-based Joint Forest Management Committees, trains former offenders as wildlife protectors and is developing other projects to integrate the welfare of communities and wildlife.

Illegal trade threatens nearly half the world’s natural heritage sites: WWF
- Poaching, illegal logging and illegal fishing of rare species protected under CITES occurs in 45 percent of the natural World Heritage sites, a new WWF report says.
- Illegal harvesting degrades the unique values that gave the heritage sites the status in the first place, the report says.
- Current approaches to preventing illegal harvesting of CITES listed species in World Heritage sites is not working, the report concludes.

Audio: Crystal Davis, director of Global Forest Watch, on conservation and Big Data
- Mongabay has partnered with Global Forest Watch (GFW) over the years, and GFW has even funded some of our coverage of global forest issues.
- Crystal Davis fills us in on how the GFW tool and dataset is being used to inform forest conservation initiatives right now, new features planned for the future, and her thoughts on the ways Big Data is changing how we approach conservation.
- We also speak with Francesca Cunninghame, the Mangrove Finch Project Leader for the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands, in our latest Field Notes segment.

Rhino poachers in Borneo: Q&A with a conservationist who lived with them
- Fiffy Hanisdah Saikim — now a senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation — spent two years living with Tidong communities on the outskirts of the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Malaysian Borneo.
- These communities included both poachers and people employed in ecotourism and conservation programs centered around the Sumatran rhino and other endangered species.
- According to Saikim, attempts to engage communities in anti-poaching programs can succeed when they demonstrate that conservation has better long-term economic returns than poaching.
- The Sumatran rhino is now extinct in the wild in Malaysia, but Saikim believes lessons from Tabin can be applied in places where rhinos still exist in the wild.

Graffiti campaign brings rhino conservation message to urban Vietnam
- The campaign is aimed at educating locals and engaging neighborhood residents about the cost of sought-after rhino horn.
- A prominent French graffiti artist, Suby One, is one of the artists whose work is featured in the campaign.
- After difficulty obtaining government approval, the campaign put up 17 pieces of art throughout the month of March.

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